Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan Signed Augmented Target Docking Adapter Photograph.

STAFFORD, Tom and Gene Cernan.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 147293

Rare official NASA photograph of the Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ATDA), or ‘angry alligator’. Oversized, color semi-glossy photograph of the ATDA as seen from the Gemini 9 spacecraft during one of their three rendezvous in space. Boldly signed on the mount in blue felt tip by Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan. Mounted. In fine condition with light bumping to the upper left corner of the mount. The piece measures 16 inches by 20 inches. From the personal collection of NASA employee John ‘Pete’ Peterson, who served in various capacities of media relations at NASA and the Manned Spacecraft Center from about 1961 to about 1973. He first served as the head of News and Media Relations, reporting to Paul Haney, and later as a special assistant to several of the chief astronauts. Due to his military and media background in both WWII and the Korean wars, he befriended and became close to several of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab astronaut crews.

The invaluable Gemini missions of the 1960s were aimed to test spaceflight techniques necessary for the Apollo moon landings. Gemini 9 was the seventh crewed Gemini flight, the 15th crewed American flight and the 23rd spaceflight of all time, during which Stafford and Cernan rendezvoused with the Augmented Target Docking Adapter and discovered a launch preparation error that prevented docking.