NASA Astronaut Group 3 experience was substituted. This applied to Aldrin, Anders, Cernan, Chaffee, Cunningham and Schweickart; all the others were test pilots. NASA Astronaut Group 3 Astronaut Group 3 was a group of fourteen astronauts selected by NASA. Their selection was announced in October 1963. Four died in training accidents before they could fly in space. All of the surviving ten flew in the Apollo program; five also flew Gemini missions. Aldrin, Bean, Cernan and Scott walked on the Moon. They are the only ones of the first 19 NASA astronaut groups to have no members at all fly on the Space Shuttle.
Buzz Aldrin used a sextant and rendezvous charts he helped create to give Lovell the right information to put the spacecraft in position to dock with the target vehicle. Gemini 12 achieved the fourth docking with an Agena target vehicle. The next task was to practice undocking and docking again. On undocking, one of the three latches caught, and Lovell had to use the Gemini's thrusters to free the spacecraft. Aldrin then docked again successfully a few minutes later. The flight plan then called for the Agena main engine to be fired to take the docked spacecraft into a higher orbit, but