Documents / Official release

Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part II, 1965

National Aeronautics and Space Administration · 1965-06-09 · 290 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is a preliminary transcript of Part II of the Gemini 4 (GT-4) flight crew debriefing, prepared by NASA's Spacecraft Operations Branch, Flight Crew Support Division, and dated June 18, 1965. The debriefing began aboard the recovery ship USS Wasp and ended at the Manned Spacecraft Center. In it, astronauts McDivitt and White discuss how the spacecraft systems performed, including the platform, OAMS, RCS and control modes. They also cover operational checks, visual sightings, experiments, mission planning and training, and give recommendations for future crews.

From the source: Release of 2026-06-12 Incident: 6/9/65, North Atlantic Ocean. This document is a preliminary transcript (Part II) derived from voice recordings of the Gemini 4 flight crew debriefing taken aboard the recovery ship, USS Wasp, on June 9, 1965. Part II of this document contains the “Visual Sightings” section of the debriefing (pages 196-224), where astronauts James McDivitt and Edward White describe their observations while aboard the spacecraft.

5
White
8.2 OAMS
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
three days I really didn't have anything with
which to establish any confidence. It was just
an unknown.
Jim did the majority of the work in this area and
I think his comments reflect my opinion also .
On the pad we did the thruster check that we
wanted to. We went around one whole cycle and
got nothing. We went around another whole cycle
and got nothing until we got to the l ast one.
We were going yaw left pitch-down, yaw right
pitch-up, yaw left pitch- down, yaw right pitch
up . When we got to that second pitch-up, I heard
the thrusters fire for the first time. ·
You can hear them. It was very distinct.
That's right. And then we went around and yawed
left and they fired again. We -waited 20 seconds
and fired a yaw left again, and they fired again .
These were the bottom manifold jets. We said,
"Okay, we're ready to go.", and that was the end
of it. So, it -was a pretty straightforward check.
The inflight checks--I got my operational checks
on the OAMS systems while chasing the booster
around. I had Direct, Pulse, and Rate Command in
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Cases discussed

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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 290 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.