Little Joe II
As NASA began work on the Apollo Moon program, every system had to be thoroughly tested. This included the escape tower system for the Apollo Command Module (CM): if something should go wrong between launch and orbit, the crew could fire the escape rocket, which would pull the CM free of the Saturn V stack and get it to safety. Once at a reasonable distance, the escape rocket would detach and the CM would make a normal descent back to Earth by parachute.
While Mercury and Gemini had both had escape rockets attached, Apollo was using a new, sleeker design. The rocket needed to be tested, but it would be a huge waste of resources and funding to do so with a Saturn rocket. The solution was the same one found with the Mercury capsule: build a rocket that could allow for the test of the escape system without having to use an actual mission rocket. As the Mercury escape rocket test had been named the Little Joe, the Apollo one was named Little Joe II.
Since the Little Joe II would be built for a very specific and limited purpose, every effort was made to use preexisting parts. The rocket motors were those used in the Scout and Recruit research rockets, while the production itself was simplified as much as possible: all the Little Joe II had to do was get launched downrange and test the escape system. The result was an 88-foot tall rocket with guidance fins, rocket motors, a small fuel cell, a mockup of the CM and Service Module (SM), and the escape rocket. Compared to the monster 361-foot Saturn V, the Little Joe II looked almost comical, like a science-fiction movie mockup of a moon rocket.
Despite its somewhat weird appearance, the Little Joe II was entirely successful. Five "full-up" launches were made at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico between 1963 and 1966, along with two simulated "pad aborts" where the escape rocket was fired on the ground. Of the flights, the first used an empty aluminum mockup of the CSM; the second through the fourth flights used "boilerplate" CSM test vehicles, while the fifth and last actually used a mission-capable CM, CSM-002. With the exception of the fourth shot--when the Little Joe booster failed and the escape rocket was fired at lower altitude than usual--the rocket worked very well.
With testing complete by 1966, the Little Joes were retired. Two have survived to present: one at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and this one, at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo. It is displayed at the museum's outside rocket park, along with the service module of CSM-100, an Apollo CSM used for structural testing; the CM is a mockup, as CSM-100's CM is in storage with the Smithsonian. The rocket is slightly leaning to the left, so that wasn't entirely the photographer's fault...
Little Joe II
As NASA began work on the Apollo Moon program, every system had to be thoroughly tested. This included the escape tower system for the Apollo Command Module (CM): if something should go wrong between launch and orbit, the crew could fire the escape rocket, which would pull the CM free of the Saturn V stack and get it to safety. Once at a reasonable distance, the escape rocket would detach and the CM would make a normal descent back to Earth by parachute.
While Mercury and Gemini had both had escape rockets attached, Apollo was using a new, sleeker design. The rocket needed to be tested, but it would be a huge waste of resources and funding to do so with a Saturn rocket. The solution was the same one found with the Mercury capsule: build a rocket that could allow for the test of the escape system without having to use an actual mission rocket. As the Mercury escape rocket test had been named the Little Joe, the Apollo one was named Little Joe II.
Since the Little Joe II would be built for a very specific and limited purpose, every effort was made to use preexisting parts. The rocket motors were those used in the Scout and Recruit research rockets, while the production itself was simplified as much as possible: all the Little Joe II had to do was get launched downrange and test the escape system. The result was an 88-foot tall rocket with guidance fins, rocket motors, a small fuel cell, a mockup of the CM and Service Module (SM), and the escape rocket. Compared to the monster 361-foot Saturn V, the Little Joe II looked almost comical, like a science-fiction movie mockup of a moon rocket.
Despite its somewhat weird appearance, the Little Joe II was entirely successful. Five "full-up" launches were made at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico between 1963 and 1966, along with two simulated "pad aborts" where the escape rocket was fired on the ground. Of the flights, the first used an empty aluminum mockup of the CSM; the second through the fourth flights used "boilerplate" CSM test vehicles, while the fifth and last actually used a mission-capable CM, CSM-002. With the exception of the fourth shot--when the Little Joe booster failed and the escape rocket was fired at lower altitude than usual--the rocket worked very well.
With testing complete by 1966, the Little Joes were retired. Two have survived to present: one at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and this one, at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo. It is displayed at the museum's outside rocket park, along with the service module of CSM-100, an Apollo CSM used for structural testing; the CM is a mockup, as CSM-100's CM is in storage with the Smithsonian. The rocket is slightly leaning to the left, so that wasn't entirely the photographer's fault...