Little Joe (rocket)

The Little Joe rocket is suborbital rockets that were used to test the emergency systems of the Mercury and Apollo spaceships.

The driven by solid rocket motors Little Joe rockets possessed depending on the desired flight profile a different combination of rocket engines, which were mounted in the actual missile body.

  • 2.1 Start List of Little Joe II

Little Joe I

The Little- Joe -I missile was equipped with various combinations of four Recruit Start strapons and either two or four Castor Pollux or. A total of seven flights ( and a failed attempt at starting ) from the Wallops Flight Facility found out instead. At a pre-programmed point of the trajectory the Mercury spacecraft was separated and pulled away from her rescue rocket from the Little Joe. The trajectory was such that the separated Mercury Drop Pods could descend on parachutes in the sea. It was originally planned in the Mercury Program, that all astronauts should carry out a training flight on a Little Joe rocket before their actual space flights, but this was removed to accelerate the spacecraft program from planning.

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Little Joe II

When enlarged for the Apollo program version Little Joe II also took back the Recruit - Start auxiliary rocket use. However, larger Algol - 1D rocket motors were used as main engines instead of Castor or Pollux engines, which were borrowed from the Scout rocket. In contrast to the first Little Joe program of the launch site was transferred to the White Sands Missile Range, so that the tested drop pods had to land on solid ground.

Another use for the flight test of the Lunar Module of the Apollo program was originally contemplated, but this was rejected for lack of time again.

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