Launch from Cape Canaveral; landing 500 km
east of Cape Canaveral in the Atlantic Ocean.
The original prime crew
(Elliot
See and Charles
Bassett) was killed in an T-38 training airplane crash on
February 28, 1966, so their backups Thomas
Stafford and Eugene
Cernan became the new prime crew. Astronauts James
Lovell and Buzz
Aldrin became the new backup crew.
The main goals of
this mission were to rendezvous and dock with the Augmented Target Docking
Adapter (
ATDA) and to conduct extravehicular activities (
EVA).
The launchs of the
ATDA and of Gemini 9A were successful, but the docking
with the Augmented Target Docking Adapter
ATDA was not achieved because the shroud on the
ATDA failed to separate. It looked like an "angry
crocodile".
Eugene
Cernan performed an
EVA
on June 05, 1966 (2h 07m). The secondary objective of this
EVA,
evaluation of the astronaut maneuvering unit (
AMU),
was not achieved. Every work during the
EVA
took much longer, than expected and he had could not maintain body position.
Eugene
Cernan became exhausted and the face plate fogged over - he
had to grope and couldn't see anything. At the end of his
EVA
he had big problems to return into the capsule and to close the hatch. Thomas
Stafford had to help him. Eugene
Cernan later was bitterly disappointed that he had been
unable to fly the Air Force's maneuvering unit.
The crew also performed
several other experiments, so as bioassay of body fluids (the only medical
experiment onboard). A micrometeorite collection package (mounted on the
ATDA) should had been picked by Eugene
Cernan during his
EVA.
Due of his blindness from the fogging face plate, he only was able to take some
photos of this package. Another package was mounted on the Gemini capsule and
could be retrieved. Other experiments were the zodiacal light photography and
the airglow horizon photography, which were partly successful, but also
impaired through Eugene
Cernans problems during his spacewalk.
The
splashdown, only 3 km far from the recovery ship, the
USS Wasp,
was broadcast live on TV.
