Launched aboard Gemini VII on December 4, 1965, Frank Borman and James Lovell showed that humans could live in weightlessness for 14 days, a space endurance record that would stand until 1970. Their spacecraft also served as the target vehicle for Gemini 6 to accomplish the world's first space rendezvous.

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 segment of Gemini VII heatshield was turned black from the intense frictional heat of reentry into the Earth's atmosphere.