Gemini VIII March 16, 1966

Video from the channel The Technicolor Whiscash about Gemini VIII, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 26:49. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.

NASA footage about Gemini 8 in which the crew discusses the film shot during the flight, covering the launch, rendezvous, docking with the Agena, and the emergency undocking. The astronauts say the launch was flawless, with some vibration until they exceeded the speed of sound, and that during stage separation they passed through a small fireball, as had already happened on Gemini 6, which left residue on the windows. Maneuvering near the Agena turned out to be easier than expected, and they compare it to formation flying between aircraft.

Docking took place at dusk, over the tracking ship Rose Knot Victor off the coast of South America, so that there would be ground telemetry. The spacecraft stopped about two feet from the docking cone, waited about two minutes for telemetry confirmation, and docked at about three-quarters of a foot per second. Afterward the rates of rotation increased until they threatened the structural integrity of the combined vehicle, joined only at three points at the nose. The crew undocked and spent about three minutes trying to isolate the fault, with manual control unresponsive for part of that time. In the end they activated the reentry control system, which is independent, and completely shut down the orbit attitude control system, which allowed them to reduce the spin rates.

The onboard footage is from March 1966, filmed at six frames per second and at one frame per second, and edited to reproduce what could be seen through the windows. The commentary comes from a post-flight press conference, with questions from reporters.

A spokesman explains that the fault was a short circuit to ground feeding one of the thrusters. It was especially serious because it coincided with the freshly achieved docking, with the belief that the system was unpowered and with the spacecraft far from any ground station. The astronauts also describe the splashdown: the parachutes worked well, they used mirrors to confirm they were coming down over water, and about 15 minutes later they saw a search plane fly over. The crew also stresses that the rendezvous maneuver is nearly identical to the one planned for lunar orbit.