Target for Gemini 9
Launch, orbit & landing data:
| Designation | F00379 / 66F07 |
| Launch date - time | 17 May 1966 - 15:15:03 UT |
| Launch site | CC, LC14 |
| Launch vehicle |
Atlas SLV-3 Agena D (#5303) |
| Size (m) | |
| Mass (kg) | 3248 |
| Decay | 17 May 1966 |
Launch failed- Control system failure
Mission details:
Everything was ready for Gemini IX on 17 May 1966. In the Mission Control Center, Eugene Kranz assumed his
duties as flight director, presiding over a three-shift operation. The other two flight directors were Glynn
S. Lunney and Clifford Charlesworth. Only 200 newsmen were on hand, compared to the thousand or more who had
covered Gemini IV the year before. Gemini was becoming more routine, hence less newsworthy.
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Gemini 9 - Agena Target Vehicle atop Atlas Launch vehicle launched
from KSC - Credit: NASA. |
After a smooth countdown, Atlas launch vehicle 5303 rose from pad 14 at 10:12 a.m. For two minutes the
rocket's three engines rammed Agena 5004 skyward. Only ten seconds before the two outboard engines were
supposed to stop, however, one of them gimbaled and locked in a hardover pitchdown position. The whole
combination - Atlas and Agena - flipped over into a nosedive and headed like a runaway torpedo back toward
Cape Kennedy.
Shortly after the booster engines stopped firing, the guidance control officer reported he had lost touch
with the launch vehicle. Richard W. Keehn, General Dynamics program manager for the Gemini Atlas, was
alarmed and puzzled. Telemetry showed that the sustainer engine had cut off, and a signal that the Agena
had separated from its launch vehicle followed. Agena signals kept coming until 456 seconds after launch -
then there was silence. Keehn raced over to Hangar J, the General Dynamics data station, where the
telemetry tapes pointed to an Atlas engine problem. But television reports implied that the target vehicle
was in trouble again, and Lockheed officials winced whenever they heard someone speak of the "Agena bird";
this was ironic in the light of the problems and delays caused by Atlas in the Mercury program and the
success of Agena in Project Surefire and Gemini VIII. Meanwhile, the Gemini IX Atlas and Agena had
plunged into the Atlantic Ocean 198 kilometers from where they had started.
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Ref.: #6a, #7, #8 - update: 01.12.07
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