Gemini Orbital Tracking

One purpose of the GEMINI program is to study the problem of and establish techniques associated with acquisition, tracking, and photography of terrestrial objects from the orbiting spacecraft. This paper describes a ground-based simulation which was performed to obtain a realistic understanding of this problem and to provide the astronauts with preflight experience. The results presented evaluate the test subjects' performance in terms of tracking-rate errors, position errors, and fuel consumption for various orbital altitudes and target offsets.