The original two person crew, Elliot See and Charles Bassett were killed in a plane crash while travelling to inspect their capsule three months before launch. They were replaced by their backup crewmembers. The flight was originally Gemini 9, which was to launch shortly after its Agena target vehicle and dock to it in orbit. The Agena launch failed and the original Gemini 9 mission was redesignated Gemini 9A and docked with an Augmented Target Docking Adapter, launched less than two weeks after the Agena failure. When Stafford and Cernan rendezvoused with the target, they confirmed telemetry indicating the payload fairing had failed to completely separate during launch and was blocking the docking adaptor. The docking was called off and the crew went on to perform a spacewalk fraught with issues that revealed large deficiencies in the spacewalking suits that needed to be corrected before the Apollo lunar missions.