The show does follow the book in content, for the most part, and timeline.
It will skip some space missions I guess, but the show is first and foremost about the wives anyway, and not the missions. The main focus will also be on the Mercury 7 wives (and astronauts) throughout the show. This also explain why we are only introduced to 3 Gemini wives at this point.
The original plan for the show before it was retooled, was apparently to have even more focus on the wives, and less on the astronauts. And perhaps cut down the timespan and possible make it into a multiple season show. But the problem with this was actually too little information about the wives non public life. There is a plethora of information about the astronauts and the space program, not to forget all the movies and shows made about that. But as the title reveal, this show was about the wives. So to fill out a full season, for instance to the end of the Mercury program, would mean the use of way more creative license on the wives behalf, and this usually create a lot of controversy. Some complain the show is too soapy and historically inaccurate as it is, so there's that.
Secondly, I guess the network feared the show wouldn't do good enough in the ratings to come back for another season. So then we could have ended up in 63' with absolutely nothing on Gemini or Apollo.
So all things considered, I think they did the right thing by going for the 10 ep mini-series.
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