On 3 June 1966, Command Pilot Thomas P. Stafford and Pilot Eugene A. Cernan launched from Cape Canaveral into orbit for the seventh crewed flight of NASA’s Gemini program. The mission, originally designated Gemini IX, was renamed Gemini IX-A after the original 17 May 1966, launch date was scrubbed. Eugene Cernan performed a 2 hour, 7 minute spacewalk (third spacewalk in history) on 5 June 1966.

The Gemini IX-A spacecraft on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

The cramped interior of the spacecraft where the two men lived during the flight.

The heat shield shows the pattern of heating as the Gemini IX-A spacecraft reentered the atmosphere on 6 June 1966 splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean a little over 340 miles east of Cape Canaveral.