Armstrong went on his first mission into space on the 16th of March 1966, in the spacecraft Gemini 8, as the command pilot. He docked the Gemini 8 successfully with an Agena target craft that was in orbit already. Although the docking was smooth enough, while the spacecrafts orbited together, they started to roll and pitch. Armstrong then managed to undock the Gemini, and regained control of the spacecraft by using the retro rockets. However, this resulted in the astronauts having to make an emergency landing into the Pacific Ocean. Following the fatal explosion of the space shuttle "Challenger" in January 1986, Armstrong was appointed deputy chief of the presidential commission set up to investigate the disaster.