(Above) This painting is an artist’s concept illustrating the relative sizes of the one-man Mercury spacecraft, the two-man Gemini spacecraft, and the three-man Apollo spacecraft. It also shows line drawings of the Atlas, Titian and Saturn V launch vehicles to show their relative size in relation to each other.
This is an artist concept of a Gemini astronaut, wearing an Astronaut Maneuvering Unit, during extravehicular activity. An umbilical tether secures the astronaut to the Gemini spacecraft (upper left). The Agena Target Vehicle (lower right) is used for Gemini rendezvous and docking maneuvers.
This is an artist’s concept depicting the approximate positions of the Gemini 6 and 7 spacecrafts during rendezvous.
This is a Gemini artist concept illustrating the sequence of events that take place if emergency ejection procedures are necessary before or following liftoff of a Gemini space flight.
This wallpaper is a 1965 artist’s concept of the two man Gemini spacecraft in flight.
The United States beat the Soviet Union in the race to produce artificial gravity. During the Gemini 11 mission, artificial gravity was created by attaching the Gemini capsule to the Agena Target Vehicle with a 36 meter tether and then rotating the capsule around it.
The rotation rate was about 0.15 rpm. The Crew at a distance of 19 meters from the center of rotation experienced 0.0005g of artificial gravity.
Because the propellant in the Agena’s tanks would float away from the rocket engine in weightlessness, the Agena was equipped with small solid-propellant rockets at the rear called “ullage” rockets. These fired briefly and pushed the vehicle forward, and the propellant sloshed back against the rocket engine so it could fire.
The most visible use of the Agena came during the Gemini program, when six Gemini spacecraft rendezvoused with their Gemini Agena Target Vehicles to simulate the techniques necessary for a lunar mission. During two of these missions, Agenas restarted their engines in space to push the Gemini spacecraft and their crews to much higher orbits. Agena proved so successful as an upper stage that more than 380 were built and the upper stage remained in use until the mid-1980s.
