page_title: Gemini 9A
section_title: Rendezvous
hierarchical_section_title: Gemini 9A / Flight / Rendezvous
caption_attribution_description: English: The Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ATDA) as seen from the Gemini 9 spacecraft. The docking adapter protective cover failed to fully separate on the ATDA and prevented the docking of the two spacecraft. The ATDA was described by the Gemini 9 crew as an "angry alligator."
context_page_description: Gemini 9A was a 1966 crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the seventh crewed Gemini flight, the 13th crewed American flight and the 23rd spaceflight of all time. The original crew for Gemini 9, command pilot Elliot See and pilot Charles Bassett, were killed in a crash on February 28, 1966 while flying a T-38 jet trainer to the McDonnell Aircraft plant in St. Louis, Missouri to inspect their spacecraft. Their deaths promoted the backup crew, Thomas P. Stafford and Eugene Cernan, to the prime crew. The mission was renamed Gemini 9A after the original May 17 launch was scrubbed when the mission's Agena Target Vehicle was destroyed after a launch failure. The mission was flown June 3–6, 1966, after launch of the backup Augmented Target Docking Adaptor. Stafford and Cernan rendezvoused with the ATDA, but were unable to dock with it because the nose fairing failed to eject from the docking target due to a launch preparation error. Cernan performed a two-hour extravehicular activity, during which it was planned for him to demonstrate free flight in a self-contained rocket pack, the USAF Astronaut Maneuvering Unit.
context_section_description: Stafford made the first thruster burn 49 minutes after launch, to add 22.7 meters per second (74 ft/s) to their speed, raising their perigee from 160 to 232 kilometers (86 to 125 nmi). An hour and 35 minutes later, Stafford corrected phase, height, and out-of-plane errors by pointing the spacecraft 40° down, and 3° to the left. Fifty-one seconds later, he fired the thrusters again to add 16.2 meters per second (53 ft/s) to their speed and put them into a 274-by-276-kilometer (148 by 149 nmi) orbit, closing at 38 meters per second (120 ft/s) on the ATDA.
  The first radar contact with the target registered a distance of 240 kilometers (150 mi) away and they had a solid lock at 222 kilometers (138 mi). Their first visual sighting came 3 hours and 20 minutes into the mission, when they were 93 kilometers (58 mi) away. They noted that they could see the flashing strobe lights on the ATDA, designed to aid identification from a distance. This made them hope that the launch shroud had in fact been jettisoned and that the telemetry was wrong.
  As they got closer, they found the ATDA to be in a slow rotation, with the conical nose shroud still attached, the two pieces hanging agape at the front like a giant, open jaw. Stafford described "It looks like an angry alligator out here rotating around". He asked if maybe he could use the spacecraft to open the 'jaws' but the ground decided against it, fearing this might cause damage to the spacecraft.
  The crew described how the shroud's explosive bolts had fired but, because the quick disconnect lanyards that were designed to unlock the electrical connectors to the explosive bolts had not been hooked up, the electrical wiring to the bolts held the two 1-1/2 inch wide steel shroud retaining bands together.  If the electrical wires were cut on one side of the shroud, the two steel bands would immediately straighten and, being still held together by the wires on the opposite side of the shroud, it was difficult to predict the path of the released bands.  Their ability to rip open a space suit caused the salvage mission to be abandoned. At the Cape, backup pilot Buzz Aldrin suggested that Cernan cut the electric wires with surgical scissors from the equipment pack. An experiment on the ground demonstrated this could indeed slice the wires, but also showed the ATDA bristled with dangerous, sharp edges. Ground controllers were, in Deke Slayton's words, "just aghast" at the idea, which did not take into consideration the substantial risks of the energy in the released shroud retaining bands holding the shroud halves together, the constant spinning of the ATDA, or the fact that the released shroud retaining bands, might whip back, and puncture Cernan's spacesuit.
  The reason for the lanyards' condition was soon discovered: Douglas built the shroud to be attached to the Agena second stage, but the Air Force decided at the last minute that Atlas could achieve the desired orbit without NASA's second stage.  This dropped NASA out of the launch and meant that the ATDA and fairing would be installed directly on Atlas—not Agena—and by a McDonnell crew instead of the normal Lockheed crew.
  NASA had contracted the Douglas engineer to witness, inspect and sign off on the fairing installation on the Agena second stage, but because Agena would not be used, McDonnell personnel would now install the fairing with which they were unfamiliar and they refused to permit the Douglas engineer on the gantry, over the protests of the engineer and NASA personnel, saying that it was a simple structure and they did not need any help. On launch day, the McDonnell crew followed procedures published by Lockheed, which had been copied from Douglas documents. The instructions said, "See blueprint," but the Lockheed drawing was not used. The Douglas technician who normally hooked up the lanyards knew what to do with the loose ends, even without the blueprint, but he was not permitted on the gantry. The strangers fixing the ATDA's shroud looked at the dangling straps, wondered what to do with them, and taped them under the small fa
caption: ATDA, with its payload fairing still attached, as seen from Gemini 9
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