Documents / Official release

Gemini 9 Debriefing, 1966

National Aeronautics and Space Administration · 1966 · 78 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

2 .
survived the spaceflight; two other speciment. The 30-day report on this
experiment will contain more results, but the full micrometoerite analysis
will take some time.
S-5 and S-6: These experiments were not officially carried, but nonetheless it
was done as "operational procedure." In all some 300 color pictures were taken
with the Hasselblad and Maurer cameras both of which were carried (for the first
time. The Maurer is eventually planned to replace the Hasselblad, but this has
been slow in evolution.) A strip was taken over Peru where the weather happened to
excellent. Features show up in these pictures which do not appear on any existing
map; for example, a glacial lake in the Ange~ which do not appear on any existing
maps. The Peruvian Embassy has been informed of this lake which may portend
an avalanche hazard for villagesilocated below, The Peruvians have sent a
military p-l,ane into the area to investigate . THis indicates the possible current
use of such pictorial information .
THe AMU exercise was unsuccessful. It proved to be too Im.lCh "work" under the
present arrangements. It takes two hands just to control the body peeitionang .
Hand-held photography during EVA for experiments looks "out of the question"
at pres ent.
J oc elyn R. Gill

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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.