Gemini VII

Gemini VII

Gemini 7 as seen by Gemini 6
Operator	NASA
COSPAR ID	1965-100A
SATCAT no.	1812
Mission duration	13 days, 18 hours, 35 minutes, 1 second
Distance travelled	9,030,000 kilometers (4,876,000 nautical miles)
Orbits completed	206
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft	Gemini SC7
Manufacturer	McDonnell
Launch mass	3,670 kilograms (8,080 lb)
Crew
Crew size	2
Members	Frank F. Borman, II James A. Lovell, Jr
Start of mission
Launch date	December 4, 1965, 19:30:03 (1965-12-04UTC19:30:03Z) UTC
Rocket	Titan II GLV, s/n 62-12562
Launch site	Cape Kennedy LC-19
End of mission
Recovered by	USS Wasp
Landing date	December 18, 1965, 14:05:04 (1965-12-18UTC14:05:05Z) UTC
Landing site	25°25.1′N 70°6.7′W / 25.4183°N 70.1117°W / 25.4183; -70.1117 (Gemini 7 splashdown)
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Low Earth orbit
Perigee	299 kilometers (161 nautical miles)
Apogee	302 kilometers (163 nautical miles)
Inclination	28.9 degrees
Period	90.54 minutes
Epoch	December 9, 1965
(L-R) Lovell, Borman Project Gemini ← Gemini 5 Gemini 6A →

Gemini 7 (officially Gemini VII) was a 1965 manned spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the fourth manned Gemini flight, the twelfth manned American flight and the twentieth manned spaceflight including Soviet flights and X-15 flights above the Kármán line. The crew of Frank F. Borman, II and James A. Lovell, Jr spent nearly 14 days in space, making a total of 206 orbits. Their spacecraft was the passive target for the first manned space rendezvous performed by the crew of Gemini 6A.

At December 9 epoch, five days after launch:

Gemini 7 was originally intended to fly after Gemini 6, but the original Gemini 6 mission was cancelled after the failure during launch of the Agena Target Vehicle with which it was meant to rendezvous and dock. The objective of rendezvous was so important, that it was decided to fly the alternate Gemini 6A mission concurrently with Gemini 7, using the latter as the rendezvous target.

The original mission of Gemini 7 changed little with these new plans. It was always planned to be a long duration flight, investigating the effects of fourteen days in space on the human body. This doubled the length of time that anyone had been in space and stood as the longest spaceflight duration record for five years.

This 14-day mission required NASA to solve some of the problems of long-duration space flight, such as stowage of waste (the crew had practiced stuffing waste paper behind their seats before the flight). Timing their workday to match that of the prime shift ground crews, both men worked and slept at the same time. Gemini 7 conducted twenty experiments, the most of any Gemini mission, including studies of nutrition in space. The astronauts also evaluated a lightweight spacesuit, the G5C, which proved uncomfortable when worn for a long time in the Gemini spacecraft's hot, cramped quarters. The high point of the mission came on the eleventh day with the rendezvous with Gemini 6A. Both astronauts, heeding the advice of Pete Conrad who had flown for eight days on Gemini 5, took books along to read. Gemini 7 was the longest manned space flight in U.S. history until the Skylab missions of the 1970s, and held the record for the longest space flight until Soyuz 9 in June 1970.