The Little Joe 2 was a suborbital test flight of the Mercury space capsule, carrying the rhesus monkey Sam close to the edge of space. He was sent to test the space equipment and the adverse effects of space on humans.
Vehicle
Little Joe
Little Joe
Height
17 m
Diameter
—
LEO capacity
0 kg
Successful launches
3
Launch complex
Launch Area 1
Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA
Wallops Flight Facility is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and north-northeast of Norfolk. The facility is operated by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and primarily serves to support science and exploration missions for NASA and other federal agencies. WFF includes an extensively instrumented range to support launches of more than a dozen types of sounding rockets; small expendable suborbital and orbital rockets; high-altitude balloon flights carrying scientific instruments for atmospheric and astronomical research; and, using its Research Airport, flight tests of aeronautical research aircraft, including uncrewed aerial vehicles.
