Neil Armstrong and David Scott achieved the first docking in space on March 16, 1966 when they linked Gemini 8 with an unmanned Agena stage. A thruster malfunction caused uncontrollable spinning of the manned craft, causing the first emergency landing of a U.S. manned space mission.

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.

The attached fragment of Gemini 8 heatshield protected against the heat generated during reentry.