Son of Little Joe II

wrote:
Flight test of a Little Joe boosted full- scale spacecraft model and
escape system for Project Mercury - May 1, 1962

The first one that Rusty lists seems to be LJ-2 on my list, the mission
with Sam the chimp, launched Dec. 4, 1959.

I wasn't listing all of the Little Joe missions, only Little Joe PDF's
that NASA has
available online.

Wikipedia has a complete list of Project Mercury missions here, (that
includes all Little Joe missions):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mercury


Rusty

Rusty wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:
The abort system tester for the CEV:
http://www.usspacenews.com/

Pat

Little Joe? Hell, those things could launch Hoss Cartwright!

Rusty

I made the Hoss joke before I scrolled down to see that NASA is really
labeling the CEV test rocket "Hoss".

I wonder if China tested the Shenzhou on the "Hop Sing"?


Rusty

In article .com,
wrote:
...Little Joe was a big part of the Mercury program as shown below:

LJ-6 Little Joe 6 Oct. 4, 59 partial success
LJ-1A Little Joe 1A Nov. 4, 59 partial success
LJ-2 Little Joe 2 Dec. 4, 59 Success "Sam" Wallops Is.
...

You missed LJ-1 (21 Aug 1959), in which the escape system fired at T-35min
due to an electrical fault -- a failure although it did demonstrate a
mostly-successful pad abort sequence!

And Big Joe, 9 Sept 1959, a suborbital Atlas launch, the first test of the
Mercury ablative heatshield. (It didn't get an MA number for some reason,
possibly because they hadn't thought of it yet.)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

On 23 Dec 2005 22:57:33 -0800, "Rusty"
wrote:

I wonder if China tested the Shenzhou on the "Hop Sing"?

....There were two test rigs, "Master Po" and "Grasshopper".

OM
--
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] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
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]=====================================[

On 23 Dec 2005 22:57:33 -0800, "Rusty" wrote:

I made the Hoss joke before I scrolled down to see that NASA is really
labeling the CEV test rocket "Hoss".

I wonder if China tested the Shenzhou on the "Hop Sing"?

Reminds me of one of Michael Landon's (Little Joe) last appearances
on the Tonight Show. He said that many people had written to ask why
the Cartwright boys never seemed to have any girlfriends, and if that
meant they were gay. Landon said that they weren't gay... but thank
God Hop Sing was...

Dale

It's great that NASA already has a cutesie name for the test booster.
Every efficient agency should have its priorities. I wonder how much
they spent to come up with the name? Probably more than I'll make
in my lifetime

In message , OM
writes
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 02:04:25 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

On 23 Dec 2005 16:15:31 -0800, "Rusty" wrote,
in part:
Pat Flannery wrote:
The abort system tester for the CEV:
http://www.usspacenews.com/

Little Joe? Hell, those things could launch Hoss Cartwright!

The reference is to a series of small rockets used for test launches of
the Mercury and Apollo capsules.

... We regulars already *know* this, John. Please learn how to
distinguish humor from confusion.

I wondered if it was named for the character, as they are the same age
:-) but according to this site
http://rocketjones.mu.nu/archives/062317.html it was named for a pair
of deuces in craps.

Pat Flannery wrote:
The abort system tester for the CEV:
http://www.usspacenews.com/

Pat

The vehicle using the 2-segment RSRM probably would not have roll
control. Wouldn't they have to add the roll control package designed
for the full "Stick" or large fins?

Rusty

Rusty wrote:

I made the Hoss joke before I scrolled down to see that NASA is really
labeling the CEV test rocket "Hoss".





I'm keen to see if they go with a full-auto abort system, or a combo
manual/auto abort system like Apollo had.
I'd go full-auto, at least during the SRB burn, due to the speed with
which solids can catastrophically fail.

Pat

Rusty wrote:


The vehicle using the 2-segment RSRM probably would not have roll
control. Wouldn't they have to add the roll control package designed
for the full "Stick" or large fins?



Scott Lowther will have to talk to them again. :-)
"That's right! We do need that roll control thingy, don't we?"
Still, it's better than SpaceX and their "LOX?! I thought you brought
the LOX....did anybody bring some LOX?" scenario from that static test.
I've got very serious doubts about that whole company.

Pat

Henry Spencer wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:
...Little Joe was a big part of the Mercury program as shown below:

LJ-6 Little Joe 6 Oct. 4, 59 partial success
LJ-1A Little Joe 1A Nov. 4, 59 partial success
LJ-2 Little Joe 2 Dec. 4, 59 Success "Sam" Wallops Is.
...

You missed LJ-1 (21 Aug 1959), in which the escape system fired at T-35min
due to an electrical fault -- a failure although it did demonstrate a
mostly-successful pad abort sequence!

And Big Joe, 9 Sept 1959, a suborbital Atlas launch, the first test of the
Mercury ablative heatshield. (It didn't get an MA number for some reason,
possibly because they hadn't thought of it yet.)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

I did miss LJ-1 I don't know why ... it's been a while since I studied
the Mercury program.
I think the reason I missed it was because the booster did not launch
on LJ-1, only the launch escape system, the booster was later re-used
on LJ-6.

NO, I see why I missed boht LJ-1 and BJ-1 ... it was because I had
listed them both in much more detail than the other missions, I have
updated my list .... Thanks:

Project Mercury
Unmanned Missions:

LJ-1 Little Joe 1 Aug. 21, 1959 Wallops Island - failed

Payload: Boiler Plate Capsule

Mission Objective:
Max Q abort and escape test. Objective was to determine how well the
escape rocket would function under the most severe dynamic loading
conditions anticipated during a Mercury-Atlas launching.

Launch: August 21, 1959, Wallops Island.
At 35 minutes before launch, evacuation of the area had been proceeding
on schedule and the batteries for the programmer and destruct system in
the test booster were being charged. Suddenly, half an hour before
launchtime, an explosive flash occurred. When the smoke cleared it was
evident that only the capsule-and-tower combination had been launched,
on a trajectory similar to an off-the-pad abort. The booster and
adapter-clamp ring remained intact on the launcher. Near apogee, at
about 2000 ft, the clamping ring that held tower to capsule released
and the little pyro-rocket for jettisoning the tower fired. The
accident report for LJ-1, issued September 18, 1959, blamed the
premature firing on the Grand Central escape rocket on an electrical
leak, or what missile engineers call transients or ghost voltages in a
relay circuit. The fault was found in a coil designed to protect
biological specimens from too rapid an abort.
Orbit:
Altitude: .4 statute miles
Orbits: 0
Duration: Days, hours, min, 20 seconds
Distance: .5 statute miles

Mission Highlights: Mission failed to meet objectives


BJ-1 Big Joe 1 Sept. 9, 1959 - success
L/V SN 10-D

Payload: Boilerplate Spacecraft

Mission Objective:
Test of ablation heatshield. The nose-cone capsule for Big Joe had no
retrorocket package. The inner structure held only a half-sized
instrumented pressure vessel instead of a pressurized cabin contoured
to the outer configuration. Built in two segments, the lower half by
Lewis and the upper by the main body of the spacecraft replica was
fabricated with thin sheets of corrugated Inconel alloy in monocoque
construction. This model of the Mercury capsule had more than one
hundred thermocouples around the capsule skin to register temperatures
inside and under the heatshield, sides and afterbody. The Atlas 10-D
was programmed to rise, pitch over horizontally to the Atlantic before
it reached its 100-mile peak altitude, then pitch down slightly before
releasing its corrugated nose cone at a shallow angle barely below the
horizontal.

Launch:
September 9, 1959, 3:19am EST. Cape Canaveral, FL
The original launch date for Big Joe was July 4, 1959 but the launch
date was postponed until min-August by the Air Force because the
booster did not checkout out perfectly at first. Then it was put off
until early September by Space Task Group (STG) engineers, who were
working on instrumentation and telemetry problems. Finally, the count
picked up on 9/8/59 when Atlas 10-D (the sixth of this model to be
flight tested) stood on the launch pad with a Mercury capsule (minus
its escape tower). About 2:30am a 19-minute hold in the countdown
was called to investigate a peculiar indication from the Burroughs
computer that was to guide the launch. A malfunction was found in the
Azusa impact prediction beacon, a transponder in the booster. Since
there were several redundant means for predicting the impact point, the
trouble was ignored and the countdown resumed. Liftoff occurred at
3:19am. EST.
Orbit:
Altitude: 95 statute miles
Orbits: 0
Duration: 0 Days, 0 hours, 13 min, 0 seconds
Distance: 1,496 statute miles
Max Velocity: 14,857 mph
Max Q: 675 psf
Max G: 12

Landing:
About 7 hours after launch, the destroyer Strong reported that she had
netted the boilerplate capsule intact.

Mission Highlights:
Spacecraft test successful, Launch Vehicle Failure. The two outboard
engines had not separated from the centerline sustainer engine after
their fuel was exhausted. The added weight of the booster engines
retarded velocity by 3000 ft per second and the capsule separated from
the booster 138 seconds too late. The impact point was 500 miles short.