Backup crew
Mission parameters
- Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
: 3762.6 kilograms (8,295.1 lb)
- Perigee
Perigee is the point at which an object makes its closest approach to the Earth.. Often the term is used in a broader sense to define the point in an orbit where the orbiting body is closest to the body it orbits. The opposite is the apogee, the farthest or highest point.The Greek prefix "peri"...
: 159.9 kilometres (99.4 mi)
- Apogee: 268.9 kilometres (167.1 mi)
- Inclination
Inclination in general is the angle between a reference plane and another plane or axis of direction.-Orbits:The inclination is one of the six orbital parameters describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit...
: 28.87°
- Period
The orbital period is the time taken for a given object to make one complete orbit about another object.When mentioned without further qualification in astronomy this refers to the sidereal period of an astronomical object, which is calculated with respect to the stars.There are several kinds of...
: 88.79 min
Docking
- Docked: July 19, 1966 - 04:15:00 UTC
- Undocked: July 20, 1966 - 19:00:00 UTC
Space walk
- Collins - EVA 1 (stand up)
- Start: July 19, 1966, 21:44:00 UTC
- End: July 19, 1966, 22:33:00 UTC
- Duration: 0 hours, 49 minutes
- Collins - EVA 2
- Start: July 20, 1966, 23:01:00 UTC
- End: July 20, 1966, 23:40:00 UTC
- Duration: 0 hours, 39 minutes
Objectives
Gemini established that radiation at high altitude was not a problem. After docking with their Agena booster in low orbit, Young and Collins used it to climb another 763.8 kilometers to meet with the dead, drifting Agena left over from the aborted Gemini VIII flight-thus executing the program's first double rendezvous. With no electricity on board the second Agena the rendezvous was accomplished with eyes only - no radar. After the rendezvous, Collins space-walked over to the dormant Agena at the end of a 15.24 meter tether, making Collins the first person to meet another spacecraft in orbit. He retrieved a cosmic dustcollecting panel from the side of the Agena, but returned no pictures of his close encounter — in the complicated business of keeping his tether clear of the Gemini and Agena, Collins' Hasselblad camera worked itself free and drifted off into orbit.
Gemini 10 was designed to achieve the objectives planned for the last two missions —
rendezvousA space rendezvous is an orbital maneuver during which two spacecraft, one of which is often a space station, arrive at the same orbit and approach to a very close distance . Rendezvous requires a precise match of the orbital velocities of the two spacecraft, allowing them to remain at a constant...
, docking and
EVAExtra-vehicular activity is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth, and outside of a spacecraft. The term most commonly applies to an EVA made outside a craft orbiting Earth , but also applies to an EVA made on the surface of the Moon...
. As well as this it was also hoped to dock with the
Agena Target VehicleThe Agena Target Vehicle was an unmanned spacecraft used by NASA during its Gemini program to develop and practice orbital space rendezvous and docking techniques and to perform large orbital changes, in preparation for the Apollo program lunar missions.-Operations:Each ATV consisted of an Agena-D...
from the Gemini 8 mission. This Agena's battery power had failed many months earlier and this would demonstrate the ability to rendezvous with a dormant object. It would be also the first mission to fire the Agena's own rocket, allowing them to reach higher orbits.
Flight
The Agena launched perfectly for the second time, after problems had occurred with the targets for Gemini 6 and 9. Gemini 10 followed 100 minutes later and entered into a 159.9 x 268.9 kilometres (167.1 mi) orbit. They were 1800 kilometres (1,118.5 mi) behind the Agena.
Rendezvous number 1
Collins discovered that he was unable to use the sextant for navigation as it did not seem to work as expected. At first he mistook airglow as the real horizon when trying to make some fixes on stars. Then the image didn't seem right. He tried another instrument that they had on board but this was not practical to use at it had a very small field of view.
They fortunately had a backup in the form of the computers on the ground. They made their first burn to put them into a 265 by 272 kilometres orbit. However Young didn't realise that during the next burn he had the spacecraft turned slightly which meant that they introduced an out of plane error. This meant two extra burns were necessary, and by the time they had docked with the Agena, 60% of their fuel had been consumed. It was decided to keep the Gemini docked to the Agena as long as possible as this would mean that they could use the fuel on board the Target Vehicle for attitude control.
The first burn of the Agena engine they made was 80 seconds long and put them in a 294 by 763 kilometres orbit. This was the highest a person had ever been (until the next mission when
Gemini 11Gemini 11 was the ninth manned spaceflight mission of NASA's Project Gemini, which flew from September 12 to 15, 1966. It was the 17th manned American flight and the 25th spaceflight to that time . Astronauts Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr. and Richard F. Gordon, Jr...
went to over 1000 kilometres (621.4 mi)). This burn was quite a ride for the crew. Because the Gemini and Agena docked nose to nose, the forces experienced were "eyeballs out" as opposed to "eyeballs in" for a launch from Earth. The crew took a couple of pictures when they reached apogee but were more interested in what was going on in the spacecraft — checking the systems and watching the radiation dosage meter.
After this they had their sleep period which lasted for eight hours and then they were ready for another busy day. First order of business was to make a second burn with the Agena engine to put them into the same orbit as the Gemini 8 Agena. This was at 20:58 UTC on 19 July and lasted 78 seconds and took 105 metres per second of their speed, putting them into a 294 by 382 kilometres (237.4 mi) orbit.
They made one more burn of the Agena to circularise their orbit to 377.6 kilometres (234.6 mi).
EVA number 1
It was now time for the first of two EVAs on Gemini 10. This was to be just a standup EVA, where Collins would 'stand' in the open hatch and take some photographs of stars as part of experiment S-13. They used a 70 mm general purpose camera to image the Southern Milky Way in ultraviolet. After orbit sunrise, Collins then photographed a colour plate on the side of the spacecraft (MSC-8) to see whether film reproduced colours accurately in space. They reentered the spacecraft six minutes early when they both found their eyes were irritated. After repressurising they ran the oxygen at high rates and flushed the environment system.
Young and Collins were both tired after the exercise of the EVA and slept well on their second 'night' in space. The next 'morning' they started preparing for the second rendezvous and another EVA.
Rendezvous number 2
After undocking from their Agena they thought they sighted the Gemini 8 Agena. It however turned out to be their own Agena 5.5 kilometres (3.4 mi) away, while their target was 176 kilometres (109.4 mi) away. It wasn't until just over 30 kilometres (18.6 mi) away that they saw it as a faint star. After a couple more correction burns they were station keeping 3 metres away. They found the Agena to be very stable and in good condition.
EVA number 2
48 hours and 41 minutes into the mission, the second EVA began. Collins' first task was to retrieve a Micrometeorite Collector (S-12) from the side of the spacecraft. This he accomplished with some difficulty (similar to that encountered by Eugene Cernan on
Gemini 9A- Backup crew :- Original primary crew :- Mission parameters :* Mass: * Perigee: * Apogee: * Inclination: 28.91°* Period: 88.78 min- 1st rendezvous :* June 3, 1966 - 17:45 - 18:00 UTC- Spacewalk :* Cernan...
). However the collector floated out of the cabin some time later during the EVA and was lost.
He next travelled over to the Agena. He tried to grab onto the docking cone but found this impossible as it was smooth and had no grip. He used a
nitrogenNitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...
-propelled Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit to move himself towards the Gemini and then back to the Agena. This time he was able to grab hold of some wire bundles and retrieved the Micrometeorite Collector (S-10) from the Agena. He decided against replacing it as he could lose the one he had just retrieved.
His last task on this EVA was to test out the gas gun. However this stopped working and meant they finished the EVA after only 25 minutes. It took the crew eight minutes to close the hatch as they had some difficulty with the 50 feet (15.2 m) of umbilical cord. It was jettisoned along with the chestpack used by Collins an hour later when they opened the hatch for the third and final time.
Experiments
There were 10 other experiments that the crew performed during the mission. Three were interested in radiation. MSC-3 was the Tri-Axis Magnetometer which measured levels in the
South Atlantic AnomalyThe South Atlantic Anomaly is an area where the Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to the Earth's surface. This leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites to higher than usual levels of radiation...
. There was also MSC-6, a beta spectrometer, measured potential radiation doses for Apollo missions, and MSC-7, a bremsstrahlung
spectrometerA spectrometer is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify materials. The variable measured is most often the light's intensity but could also, for instance, be the polarization...
which detected
radiation fluxRadiation flux is a measure of the flow of radiation from a given radioactive source.Radiation flux density is a related measure that adds area dimensions to the above definition - for example, radiation-flux/square-centimeter....
as a function of energy when the spacecraft passed through the South Atlantic Anomaly.
S-26 was interested in the ion and electron wake of the spacecraft. This provided limited results due to the lack of fuel for attitude control, but found that electron and ion temperatures higher than expected and it registered shock effects during docking and undocking.
Once again S-5 and S-6 were performed. These were Synoptic Terrain and Synoptic Weather photography respectively. Both had good results though were affected by the windows on the spacecraft being dirty. There was also S-1 which was intended to image the
Zodiacal lightZodiacal light is a faint, roughly triangular, whitish glow seen in the night sky which appears to extend up from the vicinity of the sun along the ecliptic or zodiac. Caused by sunlight scattered by space dust in the zodiacal cloud, it is so faint that either moonlight or light pollution renders...
. These were of little use as the film used was only half as sensitive as Gemini IX-A and the dirty windows lowered the transmission of light by a factor of six.
They also tried to do D-5, a navigation experiment. They were only able to track 5 stars, with six needed for accurate measurements. The last experiment, D-10, was to investigate an Ion-sensing Attitude Control system. This was to try measuring the attitude of the spacecraft from the flow of ions and electrons around the spacecraft in orbit. This experiment showed the system to be accurate and responsive.
Re-entry
The last day of the mission was short and retrofire came at 70 hours and 10 minutes into the mission. They landed only 5.6 kilometres (3.5 mi) away from the intended landing site and were recovered by the
USS GuadalcanalUSS Guadalcanal , the third Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship , was launched by the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard 16 March 1963, sponsored by Mrs. David Shoup, wife of General Shoup, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps; and commissioned 20 July 1963, Captain Dale K. Peterson in command...
.
The Gemini 10 mission was supported by the following U.S. Department of Defense resources; 9,067 personnel, 78 aircraft and 13 ships.
Insignia
The patch is simple in design but highly symbolic. The main feature is a large X with a Gemini and Agena orbiting around it. The two stars have a variety of meanings: the two rendezvous attempts, Castor and Pollux in Gemini or the two crew members. This is one of the few crew patches without the crew's name. It is able to be displayed "upside down" but is correctly shown with the spacecraft to the right. It was designed by Young's first wife, Barbara.
Spacecraft location
For many years the spacecraft was the centerpiece of a space exhibition at Norsk Teknisk Museum,
OsloOslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
,
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. It was returned on request in 2002.
The spacecraft is currently on display at the
Kansas Cosmosphere and Space CenterThe Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is a museum and educational facility in Hutchinson, Kansas that is best known for the display and restoration of spaceflight artifacts and educational camps...
,
Hutchinson, KansasHutchinson is the largest city in and the county seat of Reno County, Kansas, United States, northwest of Wichita, on the Arkansas River. It has been home to salt mines since 1887, thus its nickname of "Salt City", but locals call it "Hutch"...
. When the restoration of the
Gemini 6A-Backup crew:-Mission parameters:* Mass: * Perigee: * Apogee: * Inclination: 28.97°* Period: 88.7 min-Stationkeeping with GT-7:* Start: December 15, 1965 19:33 UTC* End: December 16, 1965 00:52 UTC-Objectives:...
spacecraft is completed, then Gemini 10 will be restored in full view of the public. At the end of this restoration it will be put back on full display at the Cosmosphere. One of the hatches is displayed at
Virginia Air and Space CenterThe Virginia Air and Space Center is a museum and educational facility in Hampton, Virginia that also serves as the visitors center for NASA's Langley Research Center...
,
Hampton, VirginiaHampton is an independent city that is not part of any county in Southeast Virginia. Its population is 137,436. As one of the seven major cities that compose the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, it is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. Located on the Hampton Roads Beltway, it hosts...
.
See also
- Agena Target Vehicle
The Agena Target Vehicle was an unmanned spacecraft used by NASA during its Gemini program to develop and practice orbital space rendezvous and docking techniques and to perform large orbital changes, in preparation for the Apollo program lunar missions.-Operations:Each ATV consisted of an Agena-D...
- Extra-vehicular activity
Extra-vehicular activity is work done by an astronaut away from the Earth, and outside of a spacecraft. The term most commonly applies to an EVA made outside a craft orbiting Earth , but also applies to an EVA made on the surface of the Moon...
- List of spacewalks
- Splashdown
Splashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft by parachute in a body of water. It was used by American manned spacecraft prior to the Space Shuttle program. It is also possible for the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft to land in water, though this is only a contingency...
- Space exploration
Space exploration is the use of space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....
- U.S. space exploration history on U.S. stamps
With the advent of unmanned and manned space flight a whole new era of American history had presented itself. Keeping with the tradition of honoring the country's history on the face of U.S. postage stamps, the U.S. Post Office began honoring the various events with its commemorative postage stamp...
- Space suit
A space suit is a garment worn to keep an astronaut alive in the harsh environment of outer space. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, and are necessary for extra-vehicular activity , work done outside spacecraft...
- Space capsule
A space capsule is an often manned spacecraft which has a simple shape for the main section, without any wings or other features to create lift during atmospheric reentry....
External links
- NASA Gemini 10 press kit - July 15, 1966
- Gemini 10 Mission Report (PDF) August 1966
- On The Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4203/cover.htm
- Spaceflight Mission Patches: http://www.genedorr.com/patches/Intro.html
- http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1966-066A
- U.S. Space Objects Registry http://usspaceobjectsregistry.state.gov/search/index.cfm