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.

  • p. 166 …So ,the next target I had was Cairo -- Cairo Int ernational Airport . Now , we'd been…
  • p. 167 this , and I had l ooked down to find Cairo. I think we had had an…
  • p. 169 …I t hink that on the tracking tasks on Yuma, Cairo, and Basr a, I managed…
  • p. 202 …We had trouble when we came to El Paso in finding it, and Cairo blended right…
172
rates . We used the Direct Control Mode . It ' s
just pretty straightforward . It ' s identical
to the simulator . We didn ' t learn anything new
from this check except tha t the s imulator was
indeed correct . Do you have anything to add ?
White No . Tha t it was pretty straightforward .
9.4 Horizon Scanner Track Check
McDivitt Hori zon Scanner Track Check is next . The
horizon scanner ignore light came on as expected
except t he attitude band ~hrough which the horizon
scanner operated was considerably broader than
we had e xpected . The scanner ignore light went
off again at the proper attitud8 , considering the f ac t
that the scanner ignore circui t keeps the
scanner ignore light on 7 seconds after the
scanner has relocked . So , we always had the
scanner ignore light go out at a different
attitude than where it came on because of the
fixed rates we were using. We went through the
zero bank angle,pitch-up and pitch- down . We
went through the zero pitch,bank-left and bank
r ight . We then got to the r0E -..,ith pi tch,i.ng.
Here , I only banked to t he right and pitched up
and down . I didn ' t bank t o the left and pitch- up

Cases discussed

About this file

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.