Parachute, Pilot, Gemini VIII

This pilot parachute pulled off the nose section, deploying the main parachute that landed the Gemini VIII spacecraft in the ocean. Gemini VIII was launched on March 16, 1966, carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott. They rendezvoused and docked with an unmanned Agena vehicle launched earlier the same day, the first space docking in history. Shortly after docking, one of the Gemini's attitude control thrusters malfunctioned. The crew undocked from the Agena, but the spacecraft began to roll wildly, eventually reaching one revolution per second. Armstrong and Scott used the Re-entry Control System to stop the roll; mission rules then forced them to make an emergency landing in the Pacific less than twelve hours into a three-day mission. A U.S. Navy destroyer recovered the crew and spacecraft and this parachute.

NASA transferred the parachute to the Smithsonian in 1970.