Launch from Cape Canaveral; landing 500 km east
of Cape Canaveral in the Atlantic Ocean.
Former prime crew (Elliot
See
and Charles
Bassett) was killed in an T-38 training airplane crash on
February 28, 1966, so their backups
Stafford and
Cernan became prime crew. Astronauts
Lovell and
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).
Launch of the
ATDA
and of Gemini 9A were successful, but the docking with the Augmented Target
Docking Adapter
ADTA
was not achieved because the shroud on the
ATDA
failed to separate.
EVA by
Cernan (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.
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.
Stafford had to help him.
Cernan later was bitterly disappointed that he had been
unable to fly the Air Force's maneuvering unit.
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
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
Cernan's problems during his spacewalk.
The
splashdown, only 3 km far from the recovery ship, the
USS Wasp, was
broadcast live on TV.