Carrying astronauts Gordon "Gordo" Cooper and Charles "Pete" Conrad, Gemini-Titan V (5) was the third manned orbital mission of the program. Launched on August 21, 1965, with a crew-chosen motto of "8 Days Or Bust", the flight was aimed at evaluating the effects of long periods of weightlessness and testing rendezvous maneuvers.

The Gemini heatshield was a dish-shaped structure that formed the large end of the reentry module. Constructed of a load-carrying Fiberglas sandwich structure consisting of two 5-ply faceplates of resin-impregnated glass cloth separated by a 0.65inch thick Fiberglas honeycomb core, an additional Fiberglas honeycomb was bonded to the convex side of the sandwich and filled with Dow-Corning DC-325 ablative material.

Encased in a lucite cylinder 3 inches in diameter, 2.5 inches tall, and engraved "Gemini V Aug. 21-29, 1965" at the bottom, the top 1/4 inch of this segment of Gemini V heatshield was turned black from the intense frictional heat of reentry into the Earth's atmosphere.