Documents / Official release
This 1966 NASA file collects memoranda by Jocelyn R. Gill of the Manned Flight Experiments Office, plus related correspondence, on the scientific experiments of the Gemini IX mission. Status reports from March and June 1966 describe the zodiacal light, airglow, micrometeorite and synoptic photography experiments, and an experiments debriefing held June 16. The file also contains a congratulatory telegram to astronauts Stafford and Cernan and a Naval Research Laboratory letter on the S-9 cosmic ray experiment. It reports no unidentified objects.
From the source: Release of 2026-06-12 Incident: June 3-6, 1966, Low Earth Orbit. Gemini IX (renamed Gemini IX-A) was the seventh crewed flight of the Gemini series, launched on June 3, 1966. The mission’s primary objectives included a spacewalk and multiple scientific and medical experiments. This document, dated June 16, 1966, is a transcript of a NASA debriefing of astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan. Pages 2-5 of this document contain the astronauts’ accounts of their observations of “flashing lights” and “sparkles” during the mission.
7 /6/66 Memorandum to the File From: J. R. Gill Subject : Experiments Debfiefing of Gemini IX held in Bldg . 4, MSC at 8:30 A.M. June 16,1966 . Gemini IX ' s performance on the 0SSA experiments was impressive . The guiding performed for S011 and S001 was the best that has yet been done on a manned spacecraft . In all 40 usu.able pictures of the airglow were made with the 2- filter (split field) arrangement attached to the wide angle Maurer lens ( NRL' s experiment) . 8ee1 : was done inside the capsule since it was not possible to attempt it during the EVA . THey got pictures of the zodiacal light and the Milky Way and the guiding was good even for the 30 sec sweeps . On Tri-X these are the best pictures yet of the zodiacal light surpassing the results achieved on Gemini V. S011; About 40 usable pictures of the airglow were obtained. THese contain some of the same star fields pictured in S00l. Guiding was very good even though Cernan had to do the experiment from a very awkward position . S012 : Hemenway showed several pictures which were enlargements (up to 35 , 000 exposed times) . Only a small portion aJf the/ surface has been a.na.lyzed, but on this portio portion 9 impacts are recorded . Hemenway is investigating possible "contamination between experiments before sending the individual sections to guest investigators . On the biological experiments where the results come ou:b faster (a) 3 swabs taken inside the s/c re- flight were dirty ; post-flight these same areas were sterile . (b ) the T-4 bacteriophages and t he penicilliumspeciroens
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 78 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.