The primecrew for the Gemini-III mission Gus Grissom and John Young.
The primecrew for the Gemini-III mission Gus Grissom and John Young.
The first manned flight of the Gemini Program was on March 23, 1965. Astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young served as command pilot and pilot, respectively. The crew was selected on April 13, 1964.
The major objectives of the Gemini-III mission were:
-To demonstrate manned orbital flight in the Gemini spacecraft
-To demonstrate and evaluate the capability to maneuver the spacecraft
-To demonstarte and evaluate the operation of the worldwide tracking network
-To evaluate the performance of spacecraft systems
-The recovery of the spacecraft and evaluate the recovery systems
Gemini-III was launched at 9:24 am, EST, on a flight that was to continue four hours,
52 minutes, and 31 seconds. Highlights of the mission were:
-An orital maneuvre over Texas (USA) during the first orbit which changed the orbital
path of a manned spacecraft for the first time.
-The forward and aft thrusters were fired in series of maneuvers to accomplish minute
changes in the orbital path. This occurred over the Indian Ocean during the second
orbit.
The maximum apogee during the flight was 121 miles, the lowest perigee, 87.0 miles. The spacecraft landed about 50 miles up-range from the predicted landing point at 2:16:31 pm, EST. The crew was recovered at 3:28 pm, and the spacecraft was picked up at 5:03 pm by the prime recovery ship the USS Intrepid.
The prime and back-up crews for the Gemini-III mission (left to right) John Young, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford.