NEXT GEMINI BEING PREPARED ON PAD

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31081, 9 June 1966, Page 17

NEXT GEMINI BEING PREPARED ON PAD

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter —Copyright) GAPE KENNEDY, June 8. America’s space base today prepared for a new manned space launch as officials went ahead with raising into position the rocket which will send Gemini X into orbit next month.

Less than 48 hours after the astronauts Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan in Gemini IX splashed down within two miles of their target ship, technicians rolled out the Gemini X rocket late yesterday afternoon and began fitting it into place on Pad 19.

The astronaut, John Young, a veteran of Gemini 111, and

a novice space pilot, Michael Collins are scheduled to go into orbit on July 18 for a three-day mission which, like Gemini IX, has plans for a rendezvous, docking and a space walk. PICTURES RECEIVED As a concession to the broiling temperatures of lunar high noon, officials today bypassed a scheduled picturetaking session from America’s Surveyor television robot for the first time since it softlanded on the moon’s surface last Thursday. Surveyor has sent 3968 pictures streaming back to earth, with several more thousand scheduled before the lunar night descends on June 14. Officials are reasonably confident that Surveyor will spring back to life at the following lunar sunrise. 0.G.0. MESSAGES

Also doing well was the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory, which was launched on Monday night into an elliptical orbit that carries it 75,768 miles into space before it loops back to within 170

miles of the earth. Scientists hope that 0.G.0. will give them enough information about solar flares to enable them tb predict eruptions of the deadly particles a month in advance, possibly saving the lives of future moon-bound astronauts. The United States had one other unscheduled satellite in orbit this morning—an 80-foot roll of film dropped by Cernan as he clambered back into Gemini IX after his space walk.

The film was a colour record of the walk.

Republican Choice.—A film actor, Ronald Reagan, tonight won the nomination as Republican candidate for next November’s elections for Governor of California, America’s most populous State.—San Francisco, June 8.