This Gemini 2 capsule is the first uncrewed spacecraft to complete two space missions.

This spacecraft’s first flight was on 19 January 1965 when it was launched aboard a Titan II booster from Launch Complex 19 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The ten-minute 2,117 nautical mile flight was the last of two unmanned missions to qualify the Gemini spacecraft and the launch vehicle for the two-man Gemini orbital spaceflights. An image of the spacecraft launching on its second flight can be seen in the image on the wall at left.

Note the crew compartment is filled with testing gear to track the progress of the flight.

The spacecraft’s second flight was as a heatshield qualification test for the US Air Force’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), a manned military space station in polar orbit. A hatch was cut through the Gemini capsule’s heatshield that would have been attached to a tunnel allowing the astronauts to go back-and-forth from spacecraft to the station. The second launch on 3 November 1966 was to prove the design, which proved to be a success. The hatch with part of the heatshield cutaway can be seen at top.

Closeup of the hatch. MOL was ultimately canceled and the system was never used.