On November 10, an attempt to launch a biological mission (Missile 32E) featuring a squirrel monkey named Goliath ended in failure when the Atlas's sustainer engine shut down almost immediately after liftoff, while the vernier engines failed to ignite. The booster engines managed to maintain attitude control until a fire erupted in the thrust section, causing the B-1 engine to shut down at T+22 seconds. Telemetry data then became erratic. The Atlas began to tumble uncontrollably and was destroyed by Range Safety at T+35 seconds, while the B-2 engine continued to operate until the missile was destroyed. The nose cone impacted the ocean approximately 20 seconds later.
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| GOLIATH launch cover with a SpaceCraft illustrated cachet, postmarked at Port Canaveral on November 10, 1961. |
Goliath, who was placed in a padded container without restraints, was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean three days later. A postmortem examination revealed that he had died from multiple head injuries likely caused by the impact with the ocean, rather than from the capsule's separation from the booster. If the flight had been successful, Goliath would have embarked on a 5,000-mile (8,000 km) suborbital flight and been recovered in the South Atlantic. The capsule lacked instrumentation or medical monitoring for the monkey, featuring only a TV camera to document his actions during the flight. The failure of Atlas 32E briefly raised concerns about Project Mercury, but NASA reassured the public that the flight used a different model of booster and that the accident was unrelated to Mercury.
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| GOLIATH launch cover with Goldcraft cachet, postmarked at Port Canaveral on November 10, 1961. |
(Reference from
SM-65E Atlas)
