Word: orbiters
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...unit that caused the problem never did kick on. As the flight soared into the second day, the oxygen pressure slowly moved upward-and optimism soared at Houston command. "The morning headline," broadcast Kraft to the astronauts, "says your flight may splash down in the Pacific on the sixth orbit." Replied Conrad: "I'm sorry to disappoint them...
...necessary components failed beyond repair, the astronauts managed to accomplish many of their assignments. Although a faulty fuel-cell system prevented them from making their planned rendezvous with another object in space, the astronauts maneuvered their craft with such precision that they could have sought out and entered the orbit of another vehicle...
...third day up, the astronauts did the next best thing: they played a game of electronic tag. In an imaginary chase across the heavens, Cooper, in four precise maneuvers, closed the gap between the orbit of Gemini 5 and the simulated orbit of a phantom Agena rocket plotted by a computer...
...fired a short burst of backward burn from the thrusters, lowering Gemini's apogee by 13 miles. Almost 40 minutes later, he triggered a forward burn to raise the perigee ten miles. Next he yawed the spacecraft and fired the aft thrusters to move it onto the same orbital plane as the phantom. After one last forward thrust to raise the apogee, Cooper had his craft in a co-elliptical orbit with the phantom Agena-close enough so that the pilot, using on-board radar and computer, could eventually bring his craft to within 17 miles below...
...make sure that as little water as possible was created, Kraft ordered the astronauts to power down to 15 amperes from a peak of 44 amperes. On the sixth day, Kraft said that he might have to bring down Gemini 5 on its 107th orbit, one day short of its planned reentry...