Plans Unhindered By Space Shot Failure

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30892, 27 October 1965, Page 17

Plans Unhindered By Space Shot Failure

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyrlghfi

CAPE KENNEDY, Oct. 26.

Plans for the 14-day Gemini VII flight in December went ahead today while engineers sought the cause of the failure of the Agena rocket that wrecked the Gemini VI mission yesterday.

There also was some second guessing on whether the modified Agena should have been fired for the first time on a mission as important as Gemini VI.

The Agena failure wiped out an intended chase across the sky by two astronauts. Captain Walter Schirra and Major Thomas Stafford, who were to catch and hook on to the agena in a vital rehearsal for later man-to-the-moon Bights. But their launching was called off when the Agena apparently exploded or broke apart six minutes 10 seconds after launching. The next Gemini VI shot will be at least four months off, possibly six. No Delay

Mr Robert Seamans, associate director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Robert Gilruth, head of the manned spacecraft centre, said the failure would not delay the over-all goal of landing the first Americans on the moon in 1969. However, additional failures i to meet an Agena in the Gemini programme would be a serious setback. The Apollo manned lunar landing programme is based on the ability of two astronauts to link with another vehicle for return to earth after they have explored the moon. With the Gemini-Agena flights postponed, Dr. George Mueller, N.A.S.A. associate administrator for manned

space flight ordered the Gemini VI spacecraft removed from its Titan II rocket, to be replaced by the Gemini VII capsule, now undergoing tests at Cape Kennedy. Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Borman and Commander A. Lovell jun., are to ride Gemini VII on the marathon two week journey, the longest manned flight yet planned. They had been scheduled for launching about December 10, but sources indicated they could go as early as December 2.

Thoroughly Checked

The earlier date would be possible because the Titan ll already has been thoroughly checked for Gemini VI. But plans for the six remaining

Gemini shots are scrambled

A major question raised by the Agena failure was why this relatively new rocket had not undergone a more thorough test programme.

the rocket which failed yesterday was a greatly’ modified version of an earlier model Agena which had logged a 90 per cent success rate in placing more than 135 United States payloads in space.

Major-General Ben I. Funk, commander of the Air Force space systems division which provided the Agena for the launching, said the rocket had not been test-launched previously because both Air Force and N.A.S.A. officials had confidence in the system.