Launch from Cape Canaveral; landing 1130 km
southeast from Cape Canaveral in the Atlantic Ocean.
It was the final
Gemini mission. The major objectives of this mission were nearly the same as
for
Gemini 11, but they were more
successful. In preparation for this mission, new, improved restraints were
added to the outside of the capsule, and a new technique-underwater
training-was introduced, which would become a staple of all future spacewalk
simulation.
The docking with the unmanned Agena target vehicle
GATV-12 was
successful, even there were problems with the rendezvous radar. For the second
time, a Gemini crew was able to practice docking and undocking. The climb to a
higher orbit, however, was cancelled because of a problem with the Agena
booster. There was also a malfunction with the fuels cells in the Gemini
capsule.
Aldrin performed three
EVAs during one
flight, which was a new record. The first (stand-up
EVA) was on
12.11.1966 (2h 29m) in which he photographed starfields, installed a movie
camera, fixed the new handrails and retrieved a micrometeorite collection
package. He did his work very calm and became not exhausted. The second
spacewalk, an umbilical
EVA, was
performed on 13.11.1966 (2h 06m), in which he attached a 100-foot tether from
the
GATV to
the spacecraft docking bar and evaluated various restraint systems. The final
EVA, again a
stand-up
EVA,
was performed on 14.11.1966 (0h 55m), in which he snapped several ultraviolet
photographs of constellations.
It was again an automatic controlled
reentry, only 5,5 km far from the recovery ship, the carrier
USS Wasp.
