Gemini 7

  1965-100A

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Spacecraft 7 was assigned to the second long duration mission; it would simulate a full lunar expedition, a fortnight long. The failure of Agena 5002 saw it also pressed into service as the rendezvous target for Spacecraft 6; it was therefore launched first, out of sequence.

After orbit insertion, Borman practised stationkeeping with the second stage. This was the first ever successful `prox ops' (proximity operations). The IVAR burn moved Gemini ahead of the second stage along its +Vbar (velocity vector). Borman yawed Gemini to face the venting upper stage; the astronauts observed a variety of small debris between them and the rocket, later identified as frozen rocket propellant vented from the stage. At a separation distance of about 60 m Borman fired thrusters again to reapproach, and began stationkeeping at 15 m. A small out of plane maneuver was made to keep the Sun out of the crew's eyes. After 15 minutes of stationkeeping the spacecraft made a 9 m/s separation maneuver. On the two succeeding revolutions of the Earth, Gemini 7 and the Titan stage reapproached each other due to their almost identical orbits. It had been planned that Gemini would stay ahead of the Titan stage, but it appears that instead it slipped behind a little more each orbit, possibly due to an incorrect orientation of the spacecraft at the time of the separation burn. After two and a half orbits, Jim Lovell carried out a 76s rocket burn to raise the orbit for the long two week haul; the burn carried them through the booster debris cloud.

On Dec 11 the crew tested an optical communications experiment. Retrofire was 90m/s aft 34m/s down. Gemini VII splashed down in the Atlantic on Dec 18 at 25 25 01 N, 70 06 07 W.

 

GT-7
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1965 Dec 4	1930:04	Launch
	1932:39	T+2:35 BECO	-5908 x 121 x 29.0
	1932:40	Staging
	1935:41	T+5:37 SECO Orbit insertion
	1936:12	IVAR burn, 2s	161 x 327 x 28.9
	1936:13	T+6:09 Stage 2 sep
	1936:13?	Fairing jettison
	1936:14	OAMS off
	1938	MSC-3 magnetometer boom deploy
	1941	Stationkeeping with stage 2 at 30m
	1946	At 15m from stage 2
	1951:13	Sep burn 20s (D-4/D-7 burn)
	1952	Begin D-4/D-7 experiment
	1952?	Experiment cover jettison?
	2114	First flypast of stage 2
	2232	Second flypast of stage 2
	2318:04	T+3:47 OAMS raise peri, 75s 18m/s	222 x 327 x 28.9
1965 Dec 7	1304	Stage 2 impact IOR
1965 Dec 7			222 x 317 x 28.9
1965 Dec 7	1713:23	Orbit adjust 16s 4m/s	236 x 317 x 28.9
1965 Dec 9	1841:59	OAMS circ at peri, 78s 19m/s	299 x 317 x 28.9
	1925:05	OAMS circ at apo 12s 5m/s	299 x 303 x 28.9
1965 Dec 14	1748?	D-4 Observe MM reentry at KMR	296 x 302 x 28.9
1965 Dec 15	1100		295 x 302 x 28.9
1965 Dec 15	1933	Rendezvous by GT-6A
1965 Dec 16	0050	end of rendezvous
1965 Dec 17		RCS thruster problem
1965 Dec 18	1327?	Adapter sep	293 x 304 x 28.9
	1328:07	Retrofire	0 x 295 x 28.9
	1328:50?	Retro jettison
	1340:00	Entry 114 km	-8 x 297 x 28.90
	1405:04	Splashdown
	1437	Recovery by USS Wasp