Gemini Problems Solved

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30827, 12 August 1965, Page 16

Gemini Problems Solved

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copynoht) HOUSTON, Aug. 11. A spokesman of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency at the Houston space centre said today “things are looking very, very good” for a planned attempt to launch two astronauts on a record eight - d a y flight through space on August 19. The spacemen, the veteran, Gordon Cooper, and a novice, Charles Conrad, were scheduled to undergo an intensive physical examiration at Cape Kennedy on Wednesday, August 11.

If all goes well, Cooper and Conrad will circle the globe 121 times in about 192 hours aboard the two-seater Gemini5. They will then eclipse the record of 119 hours in space set two years ago by a Soviet cosmonaut, Valery Bykovsky. A spokesman at the NA.S.A.’s manned spacecraft centre said minor problems which had plagued the Gemini technicians and engineers apparently had been solved. One difficulty was the loading of Gemini-s’s fuel cells, the devices which will supply the astronauts with electricity during their long stay in orbit. The official said the trouble had been solved at Cape Kennedy. “Everyone in the Gemini project office is breathing much easier,” he said. The agency plans a number of mock flights starting on Wednesday. The simulations will cover all phases of the mission from launch to land-1 ing, and will include tests of I

the agency's world-wide tracking network. Cooper, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, will become the first man to make two trips into orbit. He piloted the Faith-7 Mercury

■ capsule on a 34-hour flight into space in May, 1963. I Conrad, his co-pilot aboard , Gemini-5, was one of nine > astronauts added to the U.S • space programme nearly three r years ago.

By Franklin Folger