Gemini 6A

Gemini 6A (officially Gemini VI-A) was a 1965 crewed United States spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. The mission, flown by Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford, achieved the first crewed rendezvous with another spacecraft, its sister Gemini 7. Although the Soviet Union had twice previously launched simultaneous pairs of Vostok spacecraft, these established radio contact with each other, but they had no ability to adjust their orbits in order to rendezvous and came no closer than several kilometers of each other, while the Gemini 6 and 7 spacecraft came as close as one foot (30 cm) and could have docked had they been so equipped. Gemini 6A was the fifth crewed Gemini flight, the 13th crewed American flight, and the 21st crewed spaceflight of all time (including two X-15 flights over 100 kilometers (54 nautical miles)).