Tags: Artificialsatellite, Satellite.
Big Joe 1 (Atlas 10-D) launched an unmanned boilerplate Mercury capsule from Cape Canaveral Florida on September 9 1959. The objective of the Big Joe program was to test the Mercury spacecraft ablating heat shield. It was also the first Project Mercury flight using an Atlas booster.The flight was both a success and failure—the heat shield survived reentry and was in remarkably good condition when retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean.
