GATV

Several times during its troubled development from 1961 through 1965, NASA came close to pulling the plug on the entire GATV program.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005

At that point we added some velocity and got into a transfer arc that was to take us up to the GATV orbit.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005

At that point we added some velocity and got into a transfer arc that was to take us up to the GATV orbit.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005

Most complicated of all, the GATV needed a restartable engine capable of no less than five start-and-stop cycles in space in contrast to the two-start engine that came standard in the original Agena rocket, enabling the docked pair of spacecraft to be maneuvered in any direction, even to a different orbit.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005

Now Gemini VIII was to perform not just a rendezvous but the first actual docking in space, by joining up with the specially designed, unmanned Gemini Agena Target Vehicle GATV.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005

Several times during its troubled development from 1961 through 1965, NASA came close to pulling the plug on the entire GATV program.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005

It came as a surprise to no one that both the crew and the flight controllers in Mission Control focused, during the first minutes of the docking, on the performance of the Agena, given how riddled with problems the GATV had been.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005

Now Gemini VIII was to perform not just a rendezvous but the first actual docking in space, by joining up with the specially designed, unmanned Gemini Agena Target Vehicle GATV.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005

Most complicated of all, the GATV needed a restartable engine capable of no less than five start-and-stop cycles in space in contrast to the two-start engine that came standard in the original Agena rocket, enabling the docked pair of spacecraft to be maneuvered in any direction, even to a different orbit.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005

It came as a surprise to no one that both the crew and the flight controllers in Mission Control focused, during the first minutes of the docking, on the performance of the Agena, given how riddled with problems the GATV had been.

First Man James R. Hansen 2005