Project Apollo Little Joe II Assembly & Launches ~ 1966 NASA (Patreon)

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Silent.

Originally a public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Joe_II

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Little Joe II was an American rocket used from 1963-1966 for five uncrewed tests of the Apollo spacecraft launch escape system (LES), and to verify the performance of the command module parachute recovery system in abort mode. It was named after a similar rocket designed for the same function in Project Mercury. Launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, it was the smallest of four launch rockets used in the Apollo program...

Background

Man-rating of the Apollo launch escape system was planned to be accomplished at minimum cost early in the program. Since there were no reasonably priced launch vehicles with the payload capability and thrust versatility that could meet the requirements of the planned tests, a contract was awarded for the development and construction of a specialized launch vehicle. The rocket's predecessor, Little Joe, had been used in testing the launch escape system for the Mercury spacecraft from 1959-1960...

Design

Little Joe II was a single-stage, solid-propellant rocket which used a booster motor developed for the Recruit rocket, and a sustainer motor developed for the Algol stage of the Scout rocket family. It could fly with a variable number of booster and sustainer motors, but all were contained within a single airframe.

Development

Fabrication of the detail parts for the first vehicle started in August 1962, and the final factory systems checkout was completed in July 1963. There was an original fixed-fin configuration and a later version using flight controls...

Flights

The Qualification Test Vehicle launch, on 28 August 1963, carried a dummy payload consisting of an aluminum shell in the basic shape of the Apollo command module, with an inert LES attached, and demonstrated the rocket would work for the A-001 launch. This occurred on 13 May 1964, with a boilerplate BP-12 command module, and performed the first successful abort using a live LES. A third launch on 8 December 1964, using BP-23, tested the effectiveness of the LES when the pressures and stresses on the spacecraft were similar to what they would be during a Saturn IB or Saturn V launch. The fourth flight, with BP-22 on 19 May 1965, was designed to test the escape system at a high altitude (although the abort actually occurred at low altitude due to a failure of the Little Joe II booster). The final launch, on 20 January 1966, carried the first production spacecraft, CSM-002.

Minor spacecraft design deficiencies in the parachute reefing cutters, the drogue and main parachute deployment mortar mountings, and the command and service module umbilical cutters were found and corrected before the crewed Apollo flights began. However, all command modules flown achieved satisfactory landing conditions and confirmed that, had they been crewed spacecraft, the crew would have survived the abort conditions.

In addition, two pad abort tests were conducted in which the launch escape system was activated at ground level...