Little Joe 5

Little Joe 5 ( LJ -5) was an unmanned test as part of the U.S. space program Mercury. The launch took place on 8 November 1960 in Wallops Iceland in Virginia.

The mission provided that the Mercury capsule should be taken three of the Little Joe rocket on height. Then the rescue rocket should shoot off the capsule from the rocket, whereupon the capsule with parachutes in the Atlantic should waterways.

However ignited the rocket apparatus and the engines that should separate the capsule from the rocket, already after 16 seconds while the Little Joe rocket were accelerating so that the capsule could not be separated from the rocket. The rocket flew 16.2 km and 20.9 km far up before they crashed together with the capsule in the Atlantic. You could recover about 60 % of the rocket and 40% of the capsule.

Before the flight was considered to put a monkey into the capsule. Mainly due to technical difficulties, this plan was not carried out.

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