March 23, 1965
BREVARD COUNTY • CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – The first crewed Gemini flight, Gemini III, lifted off of Launch Pad 19 in Cape Canaveral on March 23, 1965.
The spacecraft carried astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, command pilot, and John W. Young, pilot, and one extra item: a contraband corned beef sandwich.
The astronauts and their sandwich orbited the Earth three times.
Gemini 3 was the first crewed mission in NASA’s Project Gemini and was the first time two American astronauts flew together into space.
On March 23, 1965, astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young flew three low Earth orbits in their spacecraft, which they nicknamed Molly Brown.
It was the first U.S. mission in which the crew fired thrusters to change the size and shape of their orbit, a key test of spacecraft maneuverability vital for planned flights to the Moon.
It was also the final crewed flight controlled from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Florida, before mission control functions were moved to a new control center at the newly opened Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas.
* Wikipedia contributed to this report
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