Post 2: First Story, Black Gemini and the 1980s
Additional declassifications follow...
Post 2: Black Gemini and the 1980s
After a decade of crewed military spaceflight, the United States Air Force faced choices early in the 1980s as they evaluated the next decade’s flight plans. On one hand, they could work to secure early advancement of Air Force interests in the Space Shuttle. This next great advance in spaceflight promised not only the chance to visit satellites, but also to conduct more thorough and routine overhauls with more capable EVA support. However, the work involved in betting harder on Shuttle such as accelerating pad construction at Vandenberg would, due to the nature of bureaucratic tradeoffs, involve putting Black Gemini on a glide path to cancellation. While the 304th Space Wing was putting in invaluable work, USAF was unwilling to risk missing the bus on the next sea change in spaceflight. In 1981, USAF made the decision to defer long-lead production of a new batch of Gemini capsules from McDonnell-Douglas, tentatively scheduling the last flight operations of RO-72 Gemini for 1985.
With Black Gemini beginning to plan for the end, it was even more important to ensure that USAF would have access to the Space Shuttle on schedule. Since 1979, the first USAF-funded Space Shuttle Orbiter (OV-103) had been in final assembly at Rockwell’s Palmdale facility. However, with funds saved by committing to a fixed end for the Black Gemini program, USAF was able to accelerate construction efforts supporting a new Space Shuttle launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base. This polar launch capability would be critical to ensuring that the Shuttle would be able to access USAF’s satellite constellations with sufficient payload margin to allow launching, servicing, and even return of these critical national assets. The new launch site, designated SLC-7, was to be built at Cypress Ridge [1], south of the active SLC-6 Titan pad used by Black Gemini. Unlike NASA’s Kennedy Space Center operations at LC-39, which USAF would share on an as-needed basis, the Air Force pad on the Western Range would conduct all stacking and assembly operations on the launch pad. During integration, the vehicle would be accessed from and protected by mobile servicing structures, giant buildings on rails which could roll clear of the pad area for launch. This arrangement was incapable of parallel processing flows and thus not capable of operational tempos as fast as Florida’s Saturn-heritage configuration. However, USAF anticipated only half a dozen or so launches annually from Vandenberg as the 304th Space Wing transitioned from a Gemini squadron to a Shuttle operations squadron. For this limited flight rate, the infrastructure would be both sufficient and significantly cheaper.
In addition to the new Vandenberg launch site, USAF was also moving forward with funding for new boosters, critical to allow the Shuttle to deliver its rated payload to the greater inclinations and higher orbits of most polar-launch missions, including both USAF spy satellites and NASA scientific platforms. A new generation of advanced filament-wound composite-case boosters were approved for development, including some incremental improvements to the field joints between the booster segments, which NASA and USAF also considered for equatorial launches out of Florida. Work would advance slower than preferred, but still steadily. The Air Force’s first orbiter, dubbed OV-103 Kitty Hawk, was built to the same blueprints as OV-102 Columbia. Thus, Kitty Hawk would incorporate only minor weight reductions and structural improvements, unlike OV-104 Discovery and onwards. She was rolled out in September 1980, substantially in advance of the readiness of the Vandenberg pad. After extensive negotiations, NASA arranged to “borrow” Kitty Hawk from the Air Force for launches from Cape Canaveral in late 1981. As part of training and transition activities for the 304th Space Wing, a detachment of astronauts under Lt. Col Robert Lawrence would temporarily train alongside NASA’s Shuttle astronaut corps, including some of their own former squadron-mates. They would then fly the orbiter with USAF DoD crews during early Shuttle flights until OV-099 Challenger could complete refit for orbital flight and become NASA’s second civilian orbiter. In actuality, the arrangement would continue until the readiness of Vandenberg’s SLC-7 pad in 1984, since after Challenger’s completion, NASA would return Columbia to Palmdale for a refit. Therefore, NASA would only have two flying orbiters of their own when OV-104 Discovery arrived in February of 1984. Still, with work completing on SLC-7 in March of that year, the delays to West Coast polar Shuttle operations were minimal.
While the 304th Space Wing’s support divisions and some of their pilots were learning alongside NASA at Houston and Kennedy Space Center, the wing’s primary operations with Gemini continued, if increasingly overshadowed by the “next big thing”. The organization was actively counting down, mission by mission, to the day when Gemini’s “tin can” would finally be retired. While some pilots looked forward to the enhanced operational flexibility and comfort of the new Space Shuttle over their current Gemini “tin can,” others were nostalgic for the spacecraft they had flown for the past decade. The hardships of flying Gemini, like those of other difficult postings in the past, created a certain esprit de corps and pride in those able to manage the task flight after flight. Whether anticipated or regretted, every flight to one of USAF’s spy satellites was one closer to the day Gemini would fly no more. Preparations were already underway for the day when the new, larger Shuttle crews would be needed, including recruiting yet more astronaut pilots and--for the first time--dedicated non-pilot payload and EVA specialists. Among these ranks, the 304th Space Wing recruited their first enlisted astronauts, training a group of highly senior Master Sergeants in the tricky business of orbital operations and EVA.
However, Black Gemini’s time could not last forever. By the time OV-103 Kitty Hawk was released from Florida service and flown to her new home at Vandenberg in March 1984, there were only 7 scheduled Gemini flights left. Among these, however, there were still some new records to be set. Blacksky 49 would fly from SLC-6 in July of 1984, even as Kitty Hawk was being used for pad checkouts at SLC-7 next door. Aboard for the first time was a USAF crew consisting of two women: Sam Carter, who had been USAF’s first woman astronaut aboard Winged Gemini and who was now one of the more senior USAF astronauts, and Susan Johnson, one of the program’s newest rookie flyers. The Air Force public affairs machine opened extensive interview opportunities for the crew of the first all-woman multiperson space flight, though neither (as usual) spoke in detail about the precise mission of the Blackskies squadron. Comparisons to Valentina Tereshkova’s flight in 1963 were common, along with observations on the relatively smaller pool of women represented in the modern Soviet cosmonaut corps. Even NASA’s more-male-dominated pilot groups came in for comment, as USAF test pilot pipeline to the 304th Space Wing was the only group routinely training women as astronaut candidates. Aside from the historic makeup of the crew, the visit to KH-9-10 was entirely routine, helping to demonstrate that in the realm of spaceflight, there was less difference between the sexes than prejudice might suggest.
In August 1984, Kitty Hawk lifted off for the first Vandenberg polar Space Shuttle launch. The mission was fairly ambitious: a 7-day flight to track down and rendezvous with one of the same HEXAGONs already visited by Black Gemini. For this flight, Kitty Hawk primarily carried out the tasks of the smaller vehicle - replacing film buckets, refueling orbital maneuvering thrusters, and servicing smaller orbital replacement parts such as gyroscopes. However, the mission also took advantage of the Shuttle’s enhanced EVA support tools and improved robotic arm to carry out more extensive replacement of the Flight III HEXAGON’s onboard systems, which had been redesigned for modular replacement on orbit incorporating similar modules to those being used on the new KH-11 electro-optical satellites. Even here, though, the mark of the Gemini crews remained: opening one of the access panels on the HEXAGON, Shuttle EVA crews discovered a sticker depicting the Gemini capsule’s distinctive “snout” sticking over the limb of the Earth, and bearing the caption “GEMINI WAS HERE”, a reference to the famous Kilroy image, arguably one of the earliest “memes.”
The next flight, in October, would demonstrate even more capabilities of the new system, as for the first time the Space Shuttle conducted a major overhaul of one of the KH-11 satellites, removing the original CCD imager installed at launch and replacing it with a new and significantly higher-resolution sensor system, while retaining the same telescope optics. This 10-day mission would have been beyond the capabilities of Gemini, enabled thanks to coordination between the crew inside the pressurized Shuttle cabin and the EVA specialists working outside. Other missions would continue to demonstrate the superiority of the new Rockwell orbiter over the obsolete Black Gemini like unclassified Landsat launches and, in early 1985, the return of a flown KH-9 Flight II satellite to the ground for inspection, tear-down, and possible reflight. The writing was on the wall, and Gemini’s launch tempo tapered off rapidly over 1984 and 1985, with the last mission flown in early 1986.
During its 15 year service, Black Gemini represented a ground-breaking capability, which served USAF and NRO on more than fifty missions after the end of its NASA career. While less capable than the Space Shuttle which replaced it in service with the 304th Space Wing, it was notably cheaper per launch, at least prior to the introduction of flyback boosters aboard the Space Shuttle in the late 1990s. This enabled some prospective missions which could not justify a full Shuttle launch, such as the Winged Gemini experimental tests. No such small, semi-reusable space vehicle would resume service until the introduction of the European Hermes more than a decade later. Even today, it is tantalizing to consider what might have occurred if the loss of the Space Shuttle Resolution had occurred before the complete wind-down of the RO-72 program, and what might have happened if USAF had not already been fully committed to Space Shuttle operations before the loss. However, for the moment, the story of Black Gemini is preserved only in dusty archives, secret files, and the limited public display of hardware allowed as the program has been declassified. For those interested, a flown RO-72 Gemini and one of the Flight II HEXAGON satellites it serviced, returned aboard Kitty Hawk, are displayed together at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
[1] Cypress Ridge was one of the sites considered for SLC-7 in the late 1980s as a new Titan IV launch facility. Instead of a new pad, SLC-4, which had previously launched Titan IIID and 34D was upgraded and used. Information on the site can be found in ADA413951: Environmental Impact Statement: Construction and Operation of Titan IV/Centaur Launch Complex, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Volume 3.
Post 2: Black Gemini and the 1980s
After a decade of crewed military spaceflight, the United States Air Force faced choices early in the 1980s as they evaluated the next decade’s flight plans. On one hand, they could work to secure early advancement of Air Force interests in the Space Shuttle. This next great advance in spaceflight promised not only the chance to visit satellites, but also to conduct more thorough and routine overhauls with more capable EVA support. However, the work involved in betting harder on Shuttle such as accelerating pad construction at Vandenberg would, due to the nature of bureaucratic tradeoffs, involve putting Black Gemini on a glide path to cancellation. While the 304th Space Wing was putting in invaluable work, USAF was unwilling to risk missing the bus on the next sea change in spaceflight. In 1981, USAF made the decision to defer long-lead production of a new batch of Gemini capsules from McDonnell-Douglas, tentatively scheduling the last flight operations of RO-72 Gemini for 1985.
With Black Gemini beginning to plan for the end, it was even more important to ensure that USAF would have access to the Space Shuttle on schedule. Since 1979, the first USAF-funded Space Shuttle Orbiter (OV-103) had been in final assembly at Rockwell’s Palmdale facility. However, with funds saved by committing to a fixed end for the Black Gemini program, USAF was able to accelerate construction efforts supporting a new Space Shuttle launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base. This polar launch capability would be critical to ensuring that the Shuttle would be able to access USAF’s satellite constellations with sufficient payload margin to allow launching, servicing, and even return of these critical national assets. The new launch site, designated SLC-7, was to be built at Cypress Ridge [1], south of the active SLC-6 Titan pad used by Black Gemini. Unlike NASA’s Kennedy Space Center operations at LC-39, which USAF would share on an as-needed basis, the Air Force pad on the Western Range would conduct all stacking and assembly operations on the launch pad. During integration, the vehicle would be accessed from and protected by mobile servicing structures, giant buildings on rails which could roll clear of the pad area for launch. This arrangement was incapable of parallel processing flows and thus not capable of operational tempos as fast as Florida’s Saturn-heritage configuration. However, USAF anticipated only half a dozen or so launches annually from Vandenberg as the 304th Space Wing transitioned from a Gemini squadron to a Shuttle operations squadron. For this limited flight rate, the infrastructure would be both sufficient and significantly cheaper.
In addition to the new Vandenberg launch site, USAF was also moving forward with funding for new boosters, critical to allow the Shuttle to deliver its rated payload to the greater inclinations and higher orbits of most polar-launch missions, including both USAF spy satellites and NASA scientific platforms. A new generation of advanced filament-wound composite-case boosters were approved for development, including some incremental improvements to the field joints between the booster segments, which NASA and USAF also considered for equatorial launches out of Florida. Work would advance slower than preferred, but still steadily. The Air Force’s first orbiter, dubbed OV-103 Kitty Hawk, was built to the same blueprints as OV-102 Columbia. Thus, Kitty Hawk would incorporate only minor weight reductions and structural improvements, unlike OV-104 Discovery and onwards. She was rolled out in September 1980, substantially in advance of the readiness of the Vandenberg pad. After extensive negotiations, NASA arranged to “borrow” Kitty Hawk from the Air Force for launches from Cape Canaveral in late 1981. As part of training and transition activities for the 304th Space Wing, a detachment of astronauts under Lt. Col Robert Lawrence would temporarily train alongside NASA’s Shuttle astronaut corps, including some of their own former squadron-mates. They would then fly the orbiter with USAF DoD crews during early Shuttle flights until OV-099 Challenger could complete refit for orbital flight and become NASA’s second civilian orbiter. In actuality, the arrangement would continue until the readiness of Vandenberg’s SLC-7 pad in 1984, since after Challenger’s completion, NASA would return Columbia to Palmdale for a refit. Therefore, NASA would only have two flying orbiters of their own when OV-104 Discovery arrived in February of 1984. Still, with work completing on SLC-7 in March of that year, the delays to West Coast polar Shuttle operations were minimal.
While the 304th Space Wing’s support divisions and some of their pilots were learning alongside NASA at Houston and Kennedy Space Center, the wing’s primary operations with Gemini continued, if increasingly overshadowed by the “next big thing”. The organization was actively counting down, mission by mission, to the day when Gemini’s “tin can” would finally be retired. While some pilots looked forward to the enhanced operational flexibility and comfort of the new Space Shuttle over their current Gemini “tin can,” others were nostalgic for the spacecraft they had flown for the past decade. The hardships of flying Gemini, like those of other difficult postings in the past, created a certain esprit de corps and pride in those able to manage the task flight after flight. Whether anticipated or regretted, every flight to one of USAF’s spy satellites was one closer to the day Gemini would fly no more. Preparations were already underway for the day when the new, larger Shuttle crews would be needed, including recruiting yet more astronaut pilots and--for the first time--dedicated non-pilot payload and EVA specialists. Among these ranks, the 304th Space Wing recruited their first enlisted astronauts, training a group of highly senior Master Sergeants in the tricky business of orbital operations and EVA.
However, Black Gemini’s time could not last forever. By the time OV-103 Kitty Hawk was released from Florida service and flown to her new home at Vandenberg in March 1984, there were only 7 scheduled Gemini flights left. Among these, however, there were still some new records to be set. Blacksky 49 would fly from SLC-6 in July of 1984, even as Kitty Hawk was being used for pad checkouts at SLC-7 next door. Aboard for the first time was a USAF crew consisting of two women: Sam Carter, who had been USAF’s first woman astronaut aboard Winged Gemini and who was now one of the more senior USAF astronauts, and Susan Johnson, one of the program’s newest rookie flyers. The Air Force public affairs machine opened extensive interview opportunities for the crew of the first all-woman multiperson space flight, though neither (as usual) spoke in detail about the precise mission of the Blackskies squadron. Comparisons to Valentina Tereshkova’s flight in 1963 were common, along with observations on the relatively smaller pool of women represented in the modern Soviet cosmonaut corps. Even NASA’s more-male-dominated pilot groups came in for comment, as USAF test pilot pipeline to the 304th Space Wing was the only group routinely training women as astronaut candidates. Aside from the historic makeup of the crew, the visit to KH-9-10 was entirely routine, helping to demonstrate that in the realm of spaceflight, there was less difference between the sexes than prejudice might suggest.
In August 1984, Kitty Hawk lifted off for the first Vandenberg polar Space Shuttle launch. The mission was fairly ambitious: a 7-day flight to track down and rendezvous with one of the same HEXAGONs already visited by Black Gemini. For this flight, Kitty Hawk primarily carried out the tasks of the smaller vehicle - replacing film buckets, refueling orbital maneuvering thrusters, and servicing smaller orbital replacement parts such as gyroscopes. However, the mission also took advantage of the Shuttle’s enhanced EVA support tools and improved robotic arm to carry out more extensive replacement of the Flight III HEXAGON’s onboard systems, which had been redesigned for modular replacement on orbit incorporating similar modules to those being used on the new KH-11 electro-optical satellites. Even here, though, the mark of the Gemini crews remained: opening one of the access panels on the HEXAGON, Shuttle EVA crews discovered a sticker depicting the Gemini capsule’s distinctive “snout” sticking over the limb of the Earth, and bearing the caption “GEMINI WAS HERE”, a reference to the famous Kilroy image, arguably one of the earliest “memes.”
The next flight, in October, would demonstrate even more capabilities of the new system, as for the first time the Space Shuttle conducted a major overhaul of one of the KH-11 satellites, removing the original CCD imager installed at launch and replacing it with a new and significantly higher-resolution sensor system, while retaining the same telescope optics. This 10-day mission would have been beyond the capabilities of Gemini, enabled thanks to coordination between the crew inside the pressurized Shuttle cabin and the EVA specialists working outside. Other missions would continue to demonstrate the superiority of the new Rockwell orbiter over the obsolete Black Gemini like unclassified Landsat launches and, in early 1985, the return of a flown KH-9 Flight II satellite to the ground for inspection, tear-down, and possible reflight. The writing was on the wall, and Gemini’s launch tempo tapered off rapidly over 1984 and 1985, with the last mission flown in early 1986.
During its 15 year service, Black Gemini represented a ground-breaking capability, which served USAF and NRO on more than fifty missions after the end of its NASA career. While less capable than the Space Shuttle which replaced it in service with the 304th Space Wing, it was notably cheaper per launch, at least prior to the introduction of flyback boosters aboard the Space Shuttle in the late 1990s. This enabled some prospective missions which could not justify a full Shuttle launch, such as the Winged Gemini experimental tests. No such small, semi-reusable space vehicle would resume service until the introduction of the European Hermes more than a decade later. Even today, it is tantalizing to consider what might have occurred if the loss of the Space Shuttle Resolution had occurred before the complete wind-down of the RO-72 program, and what might have happened if USAF had not already been fully committed to Space Shuttle operations before the loss. However, for the moment, the story of Black Gemini is preserved only in dusty archives, secret files, and the limited public display of hardware allowed as the program has been declassified. For those interested, a flown RO-72 Gemini and one of the Flight II HEXAGON satellites it serviced, returned aboard Kitty Hawk, are displayed together at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
[1] Cypress Ridge was one of the sites considered for SLC-7 in the late 1980s as a new Titan IV launch facility. Instead of a new pad, SLC-4, which had previously launched Titan IIID and 34D was upgraded and used. Information on the site can be found in ADA413951: Environmental Impact Statement: Construction and Operation of Titan IV/Centaur Launch Complex, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Volume 3.
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