Gemini B / MOL 1

Launch, orbit & landing data: Designation  66099 Launch date - time  03 Nov 1966 - 13:51 UT Launch site  CC, LC40 Launch vehicle  Titan 3C (#3C-9) Payload   Mass (kg)  11791 Earth orbit on :    - Perigee / Apogee   km    - Inclination  °    - Period   min Landing date - time   UT Landing location   Flight Duration (d:hr:min)   Nbr orbits   EVA Duration

MOL seen from Gemini

Mission detail:

• The launch vehicle for this mission was the Titan IIIC – the most powerful rocket then available to the USAF. The Titan IIIC consisted of a pair of three-meter in diameter solid rocket motors strapped to a set of liquid propellant core stages. This pair of five-segment motors generated a total of 10,500 kilonewtons of thrust at lift off giving the Titan IIIC half again the liftoff thrust of NASA′s Saturn IB. The first two stages of the core consisted of a modified Titan II ICBM that had been fitted with new engines and structurally reinforced to handle heavier payloads and extra stages. The final stage of the Titan IIIC was the restartable Transtage. The Transtage, which would remain attached to the OV4-3 MOL test article to provide attitude control and other support functions, would fire its pair of Aerojet AJ-10-138 engines three times to place its various payloads into the proper orbits. While MOL would use the larger Titan IIIM employing a pair of seven-segment motors and a stretched core fitted with improved engines to lift its payload into a polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a Titan IIIC launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida would provide an adequate test of the MOL launch configuration for this mission.
• With the payload and the attached Transtage pitched nose down following apogee, the pair of AJ-10-138 engines ignited for the first time to place the Gemini 2R capsule into the proper trajectory for its heat shield test. At an altitude of 193 kilometers, the Transtage shutdown and released the Gemini B capsule for a reentry at a speed of 7,820 meters per second. The heat shield experienced temperatures of nearly 1,700° C during a punishing maximum lift-to-drag reentry and successfully protected the spacecraft despite the presence of the plug for the crew transfer hatch. After a 33-minute flight which covered 10,200 kilometers, the Gemini B capsule came down near Ascension Island only 13 kilometers from its recovery ship, the Raleigh-class amphibious transport vessel, the USS La Salle. With this recovery, Gemini 2R was dubbed by some as the first American spacecraft to fly into space twice, albeit on suborbital ballistic trajectories both times (not an entirely accurate claim since X-15 number 3 had already flown a suborbital trajectory above the 100-kilometer Karman line twice during 1963 with Joseph Walker in the cockpit. Post flight inspections showed that the ablative coated plug for the transfer hatch in the heat shield had been welded shut during the reentry. The safety of the internal crew transfer tunnel via this hatch had been verified.
• Meanwhile back in space, the Transtage and its attached simulated MOL payload pitched upwards following the separation of the Gemini B and the Transtage fired its engines for a second time to enter a 144 by 307-kilometer transfer orbit. A third burn of the pair of AJ-10-138 engines 38 minutes later placed OV4-3 and its piggyback payloads into a 301 by 302 kilometer orbit with an inclination of 32.8°. Shortly thereafter, OV1-6 was deployed into a nearly circular 290-kilometer orbit along with OV4-1R into a virtually identical orbit. OV4-1T was also deployed and fired its separation motor to enter its own 291 by 319 kilometer orbit. With its piggyback payloads deployed, the Transtage set itself and the attached OV4-3 simulated MOL into a slow tumble to even out solar heating on the spacecraft to begin its extended orbital mission.
• Although the simulated MOL OV4-3 satellite had an expected lifetime of 75 days, it ceased transmissions after only 30 days. Its low orbit decayed quickly and OV4-3 entered Earth′s atmosphere on January 9, 1967 (just 67 days after launch). This had been preceded by the decay of the classified OV1-6 on December 31, 1966 and OV4-1R five days later. The last payload from this flight to reenter the atmosphere was OV4-1T on January 11, 1967. Along with the recovery of Gemini 2R reentry module, the flight had met all of its objectives.

Gemini recovery

Gemini rear view