Everything you never knew you wanted to know about the Mercury Project
LJ-5
From RixWiki
Description of Mission
From SP-45 Mercury project summary
The Little Joe 5 vehicle was launched on November 8, 1960, from the Wallops Station launch site. The test was intended to qualify a production spacecraft. It was a complete specification spacecraft at that time with the following exceptions: the landing-bag system was not incorporated; the attitude stabilization and control system was not fully operational, but was installed and used water to simulate the control system fuel; and certain components of the communications system not essential to the mission were omitted. The mission failed during flight when the escape-rocket motor was ignited before the spacecraft was released from the launch vehicle. The spacecraft remained attached to the launch vehicle until impact and was destroyed. The exact cause of the failure could not be determined because of the condition of the spacecraft components when recovered from the ocean floor and because of the lack of detailed flight measurements. The results of the analyses attributed the failure to components of the sequential system, but the cause could not be isolated. The sequential systems of spacecraft 2 and 6 were modified to preclude the possibility of a single erroneous signal igniting the escape-rocket motor. == Little Joe 5 Gallery
 Little Joe 5 prelaunch |
