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| A Little Joe 1A launch cover, postmarked at Wallops Island with a machine cancel on November 4, 1959. |
Little Joe 1A, launched on November 4, 1959, carried an unmanned boilerplate Mercury spacecraft on a suborbital flight designed to test the spacecraft's launch escape system under high aerodynamic loads near maximum dynamic pressure. The planned abort was initiated approximately 30 seconds after launch, but the escape rocket developed thrust several seconds too slowly, preventing the spacecraft from separating at the intended point in the flight. Although the primary test objective was not achieved, the Little Joe booster and other Mercury hardware performed satisfactorily, and the boilerplate spacecraft was successfully recovered.
