Mercury-Little-Joe 1B

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Mission dates
Mission: Little Joe 1B (LJ-1B)
COSPAR-ID : LILJOE-1B
Launcher: Little Joe
Crew: 1 rhesus monkey
Begin: January 21, 1960
Starting place: Wallops Flight Facility , Virginia
Landing: January 21, 1960
Landing place: Atlantic
Flight duration: 8 min 35 s
Earth orbits: suborbital flight
Apogee : 15 km
Covered track: 19 km
Maximum speed: 3307 km / h
Maximum acceleration: 4.5 g
Team photo
Miss Sam
Miss Sam
◄ Before / After ►
Mercury-Little-Joe 2 Mercury Atlas 1

Little Joe 1B (LJ-1B) was a test flight under the Mercury program . Since it was not possible to simulate an aborted flight during the maximum aerodynamic load with the two previous missions Little-Joe 1 and Little-Joe 1A , this should be carried out with this mission. The rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) "Miss Sam" was on board the capsule . It was, like its predecessor "Sam" flight Little Joe 2 , after the US Air Force S chool of A viation M edicine named. This time the flight was aborted at the desired time and Miss Sam was exposed to weightlessness for 28 seconds. The capsule was recovered by a helicopter after the landing and was back on Wallops Island just 45 minutes after take-off .

The maximum speed was 3,307 km / h, the maximum acceleration 4.5 g. The capsule flew over a distance of 19 km, the summit point was at an altitude of 15 km. The payload weighed 1,007 kg.

Miss Sam survived the test flight largely unscathed. The change in thrust when the capsule was detached from the rescue rocket made her scream and only after about 30 seconds did she calm down. Even with the scheduled landing in the Atlantic about 12 miles from the launch pad on Wallops Island, she was unharmed. During the subsequent medical examination on Wallops Island, only a very weak form of nystagmus was found. She was then returned to her enclosure at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas . What happened to her afterwards is not known.

gallery

  • Little Joe 1B took off from the Wallops Flight Facility on January 21, 1960.

  • Miss Sam is packed in a container for the flight

Web links

Commons : Little Joe 1B  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
  • Little Joe 1B. NASA, August 5, 2008, accessed October 10, 2008 .
  • Little Joe 1B. Astrolink.de, September 12, 2008, accessed October 10, 2008 .
  • LJ-1B (6). In: Project Mercury Uncrewed Missions. NASA, accessed March 25, 2017 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Colin Burgess, Chris Dubbs: Animals in Space: From Research Rockets to the Space Shuttle. Springer Science & Business Media, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 2007 ISBN 0-387-36053-0 pp. 178-179