BULLETIN

Apollo 9’s James McDivitt dies

Astronaut who commanded both the Gemini IV and Apollo 9 space missions died on 13 October

Born on 10 June 1929 in Chicago, McDivitt joined the US Air Force at the age of 21. He flew over 5,000 flight hours on 145 combat missions during the Korean War and was later an experimental test pilot, eventually earning the rank of brigadier general.

McDivitt joined NASA in 1962 as part of the agency’s second astronaut class. His first space mission, Gemini IV, was double the length of any previous NASA mission and included the first-ever US spacewalk, by his fellow astronaut Ed White. McDivitt’s second flight, Apollo 9, was the first carried out with the Apollo lunar module. He and his crew performed several manoeuvres with the module in low-Earth orbit to qualify it for lunar flight, mimicking the trials it would go through in future landing missions.

He became the manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program in August 1969, overseeing it from Apollo 12 to 16, eventually retiring in June 1972 and spending the rest of his career working in industry. www.nasa.gov