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Big Gemini (1)
April 12, 1973
After launch by a modified Titan II missile, Gemini-B1 flew a ballistic suborbital arc over the Atlantic Ocean reaching a maximum altitude of 171.km. The spacecraft was run by an onboard automatic sequencer. At 6 minutes 54 seconds after launch, retrorockets were fired. The spacecraft landed 1848 nautical miles downrange from the launch pad. The flight lasted 18 minutes 16 seconds. The landing was 83 km from the recovery aircraft carrier, the USS Iwo Jima.
The spacecraft was build from the hull of a Gemini B – a modified variant of the basic NASA Gemini build for the canceled Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory.
Gemini-B1 carried a host of subsystems developed for the forthcoming Big Gemini, to be flown unmanned in 1975.
The package consisted of two micrometeoroid detection payloads, a transmitter beacon, a cell growth experiment, a prototype hydrogen fuel cell, a thermal control experiment, a propellent transfer and monitoring system to investigate fluid dynamics in zero gravity, a prototype attitude control system, an experiment to investigate the reflection of light in space, and an experiment into heat transfer.
The spacecraft was painted to allow it to be used as a target for an optical tracking and observation experiment from the ground.
Another similar spaceship, Gemini-B2, may be flown next year.