Paraglider Capsule, Gemini TTV-2

This full-scale, manned Test Tow Vehicle (TTV) was built to train Gemini astronauts for flight. It served as the second of two TTVs used to perfect maneuvering, control, and landing techniques. It was towed aloft by a helicopter and landed several times on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

At the start of the Gemini program in 1961, NASA considered having the two-man Gemini capsule land on a runway after its return from space, rather than parachute into the ocean. This controlled descent and landing was to be accomplished by deploying an inflatable paraglider wing of the type invented by Francis Rogallo and NASA's Langley Research Center. Although never used to recover a manned spacecraft, the Paraglider Landing System Program proved useful in developing alternate landing techniques.

In 1969 NASA transferred TTV-2 to the Smithsonian.