The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

37 m. Station-keeping maneuvers continued for
over three orbits at separation distances of 30 to 90
m—close enough for the crews to see one another.
Gemini 6A then maneuvered away and the two spacecraft
flew in formation about 48 km apart until Gemini
6A began its reentry sequence. Achieving the most
precise Gemini recovery to date, the capsule splashed
down just 11 km from its primary target point. 120
Gemini 7
Crew
Command pilot: Frank Borman
Pilot: James Lovell Jr.
Highlight: long-duration mission
The longest Gemini flight, rivaling even the Space
Shuttle in terms of length of stay in orbit for a single
vehicle. Shortly after the capsule separated from the
Titan II second stage, the crew moved to within
about 18 m of the spent booster and performed a
quarter-hour of station-keeping. The crew then prepared
to carry out 20 experiments and 5 OAMS
tests, including an OAMS burn to place Gemini 7
on the right orbit to serve as a rendezvous target for
Gemini 6A. Rendezvous between the two manned
spacecraft—the first in spaceflight history—took place
on the eleventh day of the mission. (Vostok 3 and 4
passed within 6 km of each other in August 1962,
but this was not considered a rendezvous, because
the capsules were not maneuverable.) Gemini 7 was
also the first American spaceflight during which the
crew left off their pressurized suits for much of the
time. A new spacesuit, the G5C, was introduced for
the mission, which, although lighter, proved uncomfortable
when worn for long periods. Both astronauts
brought along books to read, heeding the
advice given by Conrad after Gemini 5. Gemini 7
splashed down just 10 km off target, barely beating
the record set by Gemini 6A two days earlier.
Gemini 8
Crew
Command pilot: Neil Armstrong
Pilot: David Scott
Highlights: docking and emergency landing
The first successful dual launch and docking with a
GATV, and the world’s first on-orbit docking of two
spacecraft. Originally scheduled for three days, the mission
was aborted after just one. During the first six
hours of the flight, Gemini 8 maneuvered nine times in
order to approach the GATV to within about 45 m.
Docking was achieved just over half an hour later; however,
a dangerous malfunction soon followed. Just 27
minutes after docking, a short-circuit in the OAMS
caused fuel to be lost through one of the capsule’s
thrusters. Although the astronauts did not know
exactly what was wrong, the effects were almost immediate.
Seconds after the mishap, the mated spacecraft
began to spin rapidly. Armstrong was able temporarily
to correct the problem by sequentially firing the
OAMS thrusters, but the spin kept restarting. Mission
controllers and the astronauts assumed the problem
was with the GATV, so promptly undocked; however,
Gemini 8 began to spin even more wildly—up to one
revolution per second. The motion so disoriented the
astronauts that their vision grew blurred and communications
with the ground became difficult. Armstrong
had to act fast before the astronauts lost consciousness
or the spacecraft broke apart. In a rule-breaking move
(which may have earned him the commander’s spot on
Apollo 11), he manually disabled the OAMS thrusters,
activated the Reentry Control System (RCS) thrusters,
and managed to steady the spacecraft’s motion. But the
process used up so much RCS fuel that the rest of the
mission had to be called off. Gemini 8 returned safely
to Earth in a designated emergency area of the Pacific—
the only Pacific splashdown of the Gemini program—
just 5 km from the recovery ship. Not surprisingly,
Armstrong and Scott suffered severe space sickness,
which continued after the capsule was recovered.
Gemini 9A
Crew
Command pilot: Thomas Stafford
Pilot: Eugene Cernan
Highlights: rendezvous and 2-hour EVA
The prime crew for Gemini 9 had been Elliot M. See
as command pilot and Charles A. Bassett as pilot.
However, these two astronauts were killed in a T-38 jet
training crash at St. Louis Municipal Airport, Missouri,
on February 28, 1966. Ironically, their plane
bounced off the building in which the Gemini 9
spacecraft was being prepared for flight, smashed into
a parking lot, and exploded—minutes before Stafford
and Cernan touched down at the same airport.
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