Buzz Aldrin: American Icon
Buzz Aldrin: American Icon
Property from the Buzz Aldrin Family Trust
[Gemini XII]
FLOWN Gemini XII Rendezvous Checklist
Auction Closed
July 26, 06:15 PM GMT
Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
[GEMINI XII]
FLOWN Rendezvous Checklist. Rendezvous. Part No. CF 55069, Dash 1, S/N 123. [Houston, Texas: NASA, Manned Spacecraft Center, 1966.]
10 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches. 26 pp. on 14 leaves of card stock, Velcro tab affixed to each leaf. Original printed heavy card stock covers, punched and ring bound at spine and lower right corner of back cover. Two vertical strips of Velcro (each approx. 10 x 1 in) affixed to front cover at right edge, vertical strip of Velcro (10 3/4 x 1/2 in.) affixed to inside front cover at left edge, two strips of Velcro (each 4 1/2 x 1 in.) affixed to back cover at center left and center right. With extensive pencil calculations in Aldrin's hand throughout, as well as a handful of pre-flight annotations in fine-tipped black felt pen in an unknown hand. This lot will be accompanied by a Typed Letter Signed from BUZZ ALDRIN.
FRONT COVER SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY BUZZ ALDRIN IN BLUE FINE TIP PEN, "FLOWN ON GEMINI 12, NOV. 1966/BUZZ ALDRIN".
INSIDE FRONT COVER INSCRIBED BY GENE CERNAN IN BLUE FELT TIP PEN, "DEAR 'DOCTOR'/PLEASE DON'T MISS THIS ONE/YOUR HOPEFUL COMMAND PILOT"
Directly from the Personal Collection of Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin
THE RENDEZVOUS CHECKLIST USED BY BUZZ ALDRIN ON GEMINI XII FOR APPROACH, RENDEZVOUS, AND DOCKING WITH THE AGENA TARGET VEHICLE, WITH HIS EXTENSIVE FLIGHT ANNOTATIONS THROUGHOUT
This is the checklist used by Buzz Aldrin to support his manual calculations made with a handheld sextant during approach, rendezvous, and docking with the Agena Target Vehicle (ATV), which had launched earlier in the day of the Gemini XII launch. The radar that was supposed to perform rendezvous and docking had failed. Due to this failure, Aldrin had to call on his knowledge of orbital mechanics that he had acquired during his doctoral studies at MIT, using a handheld sextant to manually guide the Gemini XII spacecraft into docking with the ATV.
NUMEROUS PAGES INCLUDE ALDRIN'S HANDWRITTEN CALCULATIONS REGARDING VARIOUS BURNS AND COURSE-CORRECT BURNS. A number of key pages for rendezvous included in this checklist are the Radar Constant Delta Height (CDH) Determination and the Terminal Phase Initiation (TPI), as well as a number of minor course correction burns done towards the end of rendezvous and docking.
The inscription by backup pilot Gene Cernan to the inside front cover references the fact that Aldrin was the first astronaut with a doctorate and was known as "Dr. Rendezvous" by his colleagues for his doctoral research on orbital mechanics related to rendezvous and docking; the title of Aldrin's MIT doctoral thesis is, "Line-of-Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous."
BUZZ ALDRIN'S provenance letter reads, in part: "This Gemini XII Rendezvous Checklist was extremely important to me as it includes charts, graphs, and worksheets that I used during the approach phase of the rendezvous. Due to failure of the radar system, I wound up manually calculating the rendezvous track to the Agena Target Vehicle (ATV). I put my doctoral thesis in orbital rendezvous theory at MIT to good use by using the charts and worksheets provided in this checklist as well as a sextant, a slide rule, and the onboard computer. My work paid off as our Gemini spacecraft maneuvered to rendezvous and docking with the ATV. This demonstrated that an astronaut could perform a rendezvous and docking using manual techniques. As I later wrote in "Return to Earth," "The rendezvous and docking went off perfectly and I had proven a major point. Man, working from a computer on his spacecraft with a series of cryptic charts, could do as effective a job as the hundreds of men and hundreds of computers back on Earth."
REFERENCES:
"Dr. Buzz Aldrin." NASA, 16 June 2020
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