page_title: Gemini 8
section_title: Agena Target Vehicle
hierarchical_section_title: Gemini 8 / Flight / Agena Target Vehicle
caption_attribution_description: English: On March 16, 1966, an Atlas booster launched an Agena Target Vehicle for the Gemini 8 mission. The flight crew for the 3 day mission, astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and David R. Scott, achieved the first rendezvous and docking to Atlas/Agena in Earth orbit.
context_page_description: Gemini 8 was the sixth crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program, launched March 16, 1966. It was the twelfth crewed American flight and the twenty-second crewed spaceflight of all time. The mission conducted the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit, but suffered the first critical in-space system failure of a U.S. spacecraft which threatened the lives of the astronauts and required an immediate abort of the mission. The crew was returned to Earth safely.
  Command pilot Neil Armstrong's flight marked the second time a U.S. civilian flew into space, and the first time a U.S. civilian flew into orbit. Armstrong had resigned his commission in the United States Naval Reserve in 1960. The Soviet Union had launched the first civilian, Valentina Tereshkova, aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963.
context_section_description: Five months earlier, NASA had launched an Agena Target Vehicle for Gemini 6, but the Atlas-Agena launch failed when the Agena's engine exploded during orbital injection and the mission had to be rescheduled. The next attempt succeeded.  Everything worked perfectly; the Agena put itself into a 298 kilometer circular orbit and oriented itself to the correct attitude for the docking. The Gemini spacecraft itself was launched into a 160 by 272 kilometer orbit by a modified Titan II on March 16, 1966 (coincidentally the 40th anniversary of the launch of the world's first liquid-fueled rocket by Dr. Robert H. Goddard), at 10:41:02 a.m. EST. Gemini 8's launch was nominal and no significant anomalies occurred with either the Titan II or the spacecraft.
caption: The Agena Target Vehicle is launched into space on an Atlas rocket in preparation for Gemini 8
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