Project Gemini Overview

The Missions

Gemini III

Gemini IV

Gemini V

Gemini VII

Gemini VI-A

Gemini VIII

Gemini IX-A

Gemini X

Gemini XI

Gemini XII

The launch of Gemini Titan IV with astronauts Jim McDivitt and Ed White. Photo Credit: NASA

The path to the Moon was a long journey composed of many small steps. Project Mercury was only the beginning. New technologies and techniques had to be developed and tested. Many questions had to be answered before a human life could be committed to the airless void between the Earth and the Moon.

Would it be possible for a man to survive in space for the amount of time it would take to go to and return from the Moon?

Could a man work efficiently and survive outside of his spacecraft in the vacuum of space?

Would it be possible a spacecraft change not only its attitude in space but also its orbital path?

Could one spacecraft track down another spacecraft already in orbit and rendezvous with it?

Would it be possible to link up two spacecraft in orbit with a technique called docking?

These questions and many more were to be answered by project Gemini. There were ten manned missions in the Gemini program between March of 1965 and November of 1966.

The original three goals of the Gemini program were:

To subject man and equipment to space flight up two weeks in duration.
To rendezvous and dock with orbiting vehicles and to maneuver the docked combination by using the target vehicle's propulsion system.
To perfect methods of entering the atmosphere and landing at a preselected point on land.

The third goal was amended in 1964 to remove the objective of landing a spacecraft on the land instead of the ocean.