It became obvious that the problem was a stuck thruster in the Orbital Attitude and Maneuvering System (OAMS) on the white adapter module of the Armstrong and Scott’s spacecraft. Away from the target vehicle, Gemini VIII began to roll even more violently. Scott had a small panel that allowed him to control the Agena he reset it to ground control and hit the undock button. Believing that an attitude-control failure on the docking target was likely, they decided to undock. The two were afraid the Agena might break apart and blow up. Soon they began to gyrate at rates that made seeing the instrument panel difficult. Out of touch with Houston controllers on the far side of the world, far from any tracking stations, Armstrong struggled to gain control, to no avail. Armstrong used the Gemini’s thrusters to stop the roll, but it immediately started again and began to get worse, a combined roll and tumble. Twenty-seven minutes later, as the Agena was executing a planned maneuver to turn the combined spacecraft 90 degrees, Scott noticed that they were also rolling. Gemini VIII’s Agena during the fly-around shortly before docking. Everything went smoothly and at 6:33 mission elapsed time, Armstrong and Scott docked. In Gemini terminology, they were to make an “M=4 rendezvous”-catch-up to the Agena in four orbits, about six hours. Five minutes later, after experiencing the high G-forces of riding America’s second-generation ICBM, the Titan II, the two were in orbit. An hour and forty-one minutes later, after it had made one circuit and passed over Florida, Armstrong and Scott’s Gemini-Titan II rocket ascended from Pad 19 to give chase. program, after Ed White’s on Gemini IV in June 1965, during a flight lasting three days.Īt 10:00 am on March 16, the mission’s Atlas-Agena lifted off from Pad 14 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and successfully orbited the Agena. Scott was to make the second spacewalk in the U.S. On Gemini VIII, Armstrong and Scott’s secondary objective was to gain more experience with “extravehicular activity” (EVA), another technique crucial to Apollo. The uncrewed Atlas-Agena Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford were to dock with had blown up during launch on its Atlas booster the preceding October 25, necessitating the alternate plan for their mission. Gemini VIII’s primary objective was to accomplish what Gemini VI-A could not do: dock with an Agena, a rocket stage boosted by an Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). I recently wrote about the scary pad shutdown of Gemini VI-A on December 12, 1965, followed by the successful launch and rendezvous with Gemini VII three days later. Neil Armstrong is at left and Dave Scott in center. Mason as it docked in Okinawa after the emergency landing. The Gemini VIII crew on the recovery destroyer USS Leonard F. Their cool handling of the Gemini VIII crisis ensured their leading roles in the Apollo program. His Gemini crewmate was David Scott, who would be the command module pilot of Apollo 9 and the commander of Apollo 15, the first lunar landing to carry a roving vehicle. Forty months later, he would become the first human to set foot on the Moon as commander of Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong led the mission, which was to demonstrate space docking, a technique essential to the Apollo lunar landing program. Gemini VIII, joined to its Agena target vehicle, began spinning and gyrating when the astronauts undocked, Gemini’s rotation accelerated to the point where the crew could black out and die. Gemini VIII lifts off atop a Titan II rocket with command pilot Neil Armstrong and pilot David Scott aboard.įifty-five years ago, on March 16, 1966, the Gemini VIII astronauts made the world’s first space docking, quickly followed by the first life-threatening, in-flight emergency in the short history of the U.S. Your support will help fund exhibitions, educational programming, and preservation efforts.īecome a member Wall of Honor Ways to give Host an Event Programs Learning resources Plan a field trip Educator professional development Education monthly theme Stories Topics Collections On demand For researchersīring the Air and Space Museum to your learners, wherever you are. National Air and Space Museum in DC Udvar-Hazy Center in VA Plan a field trip Plan a group visitĭiscover our exhibitions and participate in programs both in person or virtually.īrowse our collections, stories, research, and on demand content. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC. Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history.
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