Les progrès du programme Gemini | Trajectory : Histoire de la conquête spatiale

Video from the channel Sciences Tube about Project Gemini, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 23:09. Language: French. Video type: Documentary.

Episode of the educational series «Trajectory» bringing together three stories from space exploration. The main part follows the progress of the Gemini program in 1965 with the Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 missions and the first American orbital rendezvous. The other two cover the Cassini probe at Saturn and the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars with support from the MRO orbiter.

Gemini was created so NASA could master rendezvous and docking in orbit, techniques essential for reaching the Moon. Gemini 4 had achieved Ed White's spacewalk but not a rendezvous, and Gemini 5 broke the American endurance record without completing one either. On October 25, 1965, the Agena target vehicle, launched by an Atlas, was lost minutes after separation, and Schirra and Stafford had to get out of their capsule. NASA rescheduled the mission as Gemini 6A to rendezvous with Gemini 7, which launched on December 4 with Borman and Lovell aboard for a 14-day flight focused on the effects of prolonged weightlessness. On December 12, Gemini 6A's Titan engines shut down one second after ignition due to an unplugged electrical connector. Schirra decided not to eject, and three days later the mission launched.

Three hours after launch, Gemini 6A detected Gemini 7 by radar at about 400 km and reached it on its fourth orbit. Both spacecraft flew together for more than four hours, at times as close as 30 cm, though without docking. The documentary contrasts the precision of these maneuvers with the simultaneous flight of Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 in 1962. Gemini 6A splashed down in the Atlantic after a day in orbit, and Gemini 7 returned on December 18, recovered by the same ship, the USS Wasp. The Cassini section covers its arrival at Saturn in July 2004, the Huygens descent onto Titan, and the activity of Enceladus. The Mars section covers Curiosity's launch in late 2011 on an Atlas V and its cable-suspended descent near Gale crater.