Gemini VII
December 4, 1965 2:30pm
Crew: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell
Orbits: 206
Duration: 13 days, 18 hours, 35 minutes, 1 second
The launch of Gemini 7 went as planned, and the crew began what became a long, uncomfortable ordeal. NASA had always intended this flight to push the boundaries and keep the crew in orbit for fourteen days. Borman and Lovell were going to spend that time in a space optimistically described as being as big as the front seats of Volkswagen Beetle.
They wore new, lightweight pressure suits that proved to be too hot, and difficult in the cramped space to get into or out of. NASA managers had decreed that at least one of the astronauts had to wear a suit at all times. Lovell was allowed to get out of his on the third day of the mission. After six days, NASA allowed Borman to take his suit off as well.
After the Gemini capsule had separated from the second stage of the Titan II, Borman maneuvered to fly in formation with the spent booster for fifteen minutes. But the real test wouldn’t begin until Gemini 6 arrived.
Afterward, Gemini 7 still had three days to go. But there was little left to do, and both Borman and Lovell took the time to read books they’d brought along with him. There were some minor problems with thrusters and the fuel cells. Finally, on December 18th, they fired the retrorockets and returned safely. They had set an endurance record that would stand until the Soyuz 9 mission in 1970.
Gemini VIA – First Attempt
December 12, 1965 9:54am
Crew: Wally Schirra, Tom Stafford
Immediately after the launch of Gemini 7, crews on the ground began preparing for Gemini 6. Within two hours, both stages of the Titan II had arrived at Pad 19. Everything proceeded according to plan and at 9:54 am on December 12th, 1965, the Titan’s engines ignited.
And then they promptly shut down. Schirra and the launch controllers had only seconds to decide what to do. If the Titan had moved off the pad, it would be an abort situation. The crew would have to fire their ejector seats and suffer the consequences. Booster engineer Charlie Harmon made a split-second call, “no liftoff!” This wasn’t an abort situation. Schirra hadn’t felt the Titan move, and he made the same decision. “This was probably one of the most short-term, riskiest, and one hundred percent correct decisions we ever made,” Gene Kranz would later say. Schirra and Stafford waited in the Gemini for forty minutes until everything was safe and the tower was raised up to, they could get out.
The cause of the engine shutdown was quickly identified as an electrical plug that had dropped out of the base of the booster too early. But that was good news because one of the two engines never reached full thrust. A dust cover, accidentally left inside the Titan when it was assembled, blocked the flow of oxidizer.
Now the challenge became even greater. Time was quickly running out.
Gemini VIA – Second Attempt
December 15, 1965 8:37am
Crew: Wally Schirra, Tom Stafford
Orbits: 16
Duration: 1 day, 1 hour, 51 minutes, 24 seconds
Three days later, NASA was ready to try again. This time the launch was flawless. On the morning of December 15th, 1965, Gemini 6 finally reached orbit. After their first orbit, Schirra began maneuvering to catch up to Gemini 7. After six hours, the spacecraft were flying in formation, only 130 feet apart. Schirra continued to move closer, flying around Gemini 7 and at one point the spacecraft were only a foot apart. They had done it, proving behind any doubt that rendezvous was possible. If the spacecraft had been properly equipped, they could have docked. But that would have to wait.
The next day, Gemini 6 returned for a safe landing in the Atlantic Ocean. For the first time, the recovery of the spacecraft and crew was televised live.
The failure of the Agena in October led to an intense effort to find the spacecraft’s fault and fix them. Gemini 7 had proven the viability of long-duration flights, but NASA still needed to perfect rendezvous and docking procedures. The Agena was still the best option for achieving those goals.
The engineers worked in shifts, around the clock, seven days a week, for months to identify the problem and fix it. They traced the failure of the Gemini 6 Agena to the spacecraft’s engine. NASA needed to be able to stop and start the engine five times during a mission. Work on redesigning the Agena’s engine got underway.
Meanwhile, John Yardley, McDonnell’s Gemini Program Technical Director, suggested an alternative. It was called the Augmented Target Docking Adapter, or ATDA. The design was simply a target docking adapter attached to the rendezvous and recovery section of a Gemini spacecraft. McDonnell quickly went to work, and the ATDA was ready to fly by the beginning of March 1966.
The frenzied effort to get the Agena ungraded and requalified was also completed in March, just in time for Gemini VIII.
bubble gum and baling wire, whatever works . git 'er done.