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Six weeks after Sam's flight, space monkey Miss Sam thunders off the launch pad in the Little Joe-1B rocket test at 9:23 am, the morning of January 21, 1960, Wallops Island, Virginia, on her successful flight and abort test over the Virginia coast and subsequent splashdown in the Atlantic Operating Area. Miss Sam rockets to an altitude of 9.3 miles with a speed of 2,021 miles per hour in her brief 8 minute and 35 second flight. She is successfully recovered from the Atlantic Ocean by a U.S. Marine Corps MAG-26 helicopter crew and is returned to Wallops Island, Virginia, for thorough medical checks after her flight. Miss Sam is found to be in excellent condition, completes all test objectives, and enthusiastically rejoins her fellow space monkey, Sam, post flight. [IMG]http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2323/13132186/23370140/407391715.jpg[/IMG] [i]A stylized Miss Sam is pictured in this launch cover canceled on the mission's launch date at Wallops Island, Virginia; this classic Goldcraft cover is from the author's collection.[/i] A MAG-26 recovery helo returns Miss Sam to Wallops Island for post flight examination while primary recovery ship, USS Opportune, ARS-41, locates and recovers the Little Joe-1B's escape tower. The USS Opportune then returns to port after completing her operational assignment supporting the mission. As a small ship, the ship does not have a post office aboard, and, no USS Opportune recovery ship covers are known for the recovery of Miss Sam in Little Joe-1B. [IMG]http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2323/13132186/23370140/407391875.jpg[/IMG] [i]USS Opportune completes its mission assignment for Miss Sam's flight and cruises back to home port, photo credit National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors.[/i] The success of Miss Sam's flight in Little Joe 1-B meant that the next Little Joe flight, the sixth in the series of test flights, termed Little Joe-5, would be the first flight to fully test a production model Mercury spacecraft taken from the McDonnell Aircraft Company's manufacturing line. Langley engineers close the chapter on developmental flight tests using boilerplate spacecraft models, and open a new chapter on qualification flight tests using an actual McDonnell spacecraft. Moving away from research and into development, the Space Task Group moved markedly closer to operational flight for Project Mercury with the success of Miss Sam's flight. [IMG]http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2323/13132186/23370140/407393157.jpg[/IMG] [i]Space monkey Miss Sam is shown in her spacesuit and ready for her flight, photo credit NASA.[/i] So, with the continuation of the 50th anniversary events for early space flights and especially those for Project Mercury, fondly remember two early monkeynauts, Sam and Miss Sam, at Wallops Island, Virginia, who were among the first to rocket away from Earth, land in their spacecrafts at sea, and complete a successful recovery with their primary recovery ship and rescue helo, showing astronauts that they too could do it. Would astronauts do as well?
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