Little Joe II (A-004)

Little Joe II was an enlarged version of the Little Joe concept used during Project Mercury. The Purpose of Little Joe II was to test the capabilities of the Apollo launch escape system.

Before NASA could start with the Apollo-Saturn IB launches, operations had to clean up one outstanding matter in New Mexico. NASA had hoped to finish the Little Joe II abort qualification program by the end of 1965, but on 17 December the Flight Readiness Board refused to accept the booster and canceled a launch set for the next day.

A month later, at 8:15 on the morning of 20 January 1966, the last Little Joe II headed toward an altitude of 24 kilometers and a downrange distance of 14 kilometers. Then, as designed, the launch vehicle started to tumble; the launch escape system sensed trouble and fired its abort rocket, carrying the command module away from impending disaster.

All went well on Mission A-004-the launch, the test conditions, the telemetry, the spacecraft (Block I production model 002), and the post flight analysis. The spacecraft windows picked up too much soot from the tower jettison motor, but the structure remained intact. Little Joe II was honorably-retired, its basic purpose – making sure the launch escape and earth landing systems could protect the astronauts in either emergency or normal operations – accomplished.