Mercury Beach Abort Test, July 22, 1959
Overview and Background
The July 22 Mercury Beach Abort test was intended to test the operation of the escape tower system under simulated "pad abort" conditions. Simply put, could the system pull a Mercury Capsule away from a troubled booster while the entire stack was still on the launch pad? Earlier beach abort tests utilizing earlier Mercury capsule shape variants had not been entirely successful, and NASA engineers hoped that the refined "Type D" capsule shape would do the trick.
Evolution of the Mercury Capsule shape
Comparison of Type C & D capsule shapes
A simple boilerplate Mercury capsule was constructed for the test from simple rolled steel plate, with basic systems and ballast to approximate the mass and weight distribution of a production Mercury spacecraft. The July 22, 1959 test was successful, and the recovered capsule was repainted and used for a later Little Joe flight, LJ-1A on November 4, 1959.
If you're interested in what an actual Beach Abort flight looked like, you can see a video of the May 9, 1960 test involving production spacecraft #1.
Mercury Beach Abort Test, July 22, 1959
The "recycling" of the capsule makes it possible for a modeler to use the same research, parts, and tooling to create replicas of both the July 22 Beach Abort flight and the LJ-1A round.
The Model
The only part unique to the Beach Abort version of the model is the forward closure of the escape tower motor, shown at the right front of the photo above. The capsule, tower lattice, aft motor closure, antenna canister, motor nozzles, and tower jettison motor are identical to those used for the LJ-1A model.
The large round piece at the left front of the photo is the tower base, which in this version is a simple vacuformed disc. I've since uncovered additional data on this component, and the Little Joe model will have a more complex and accurate part. As we're pushing to get this particular model ready for the upcoming Austin Scale Modeler's Society show on April 29, the current part will have to do.
Color and Markings
As only black and white photos of the July 22 Beach Abort capsule exist, determining the appropriate colors can be a bit of a bear. Fortunately, others have done much of the necessary research in this area, most notably Peter Alway, who has documented an early Type C Beach Abort in his 2002 supplement to the indispensable "Rockets of the World." The alternating orange/white roll pattern is clearly established by Peter's research, and we can make a pretty secure guess that the July 22 flight featured a similar pattern, backed up by the fact that orange has a very distinctive appearance in black & white photos. The photo above shows that the roll pattern extends to the underside of the capsule.
We can also see that the escape tower motor, nozzles, and lattice were painted black, as was the "coolie hat" component atop the antenna canister. It is assumed that the recovery section is unpainted metal, consistent with flights in the Little Joe series. The tower jettison motor (barely visible in any of the photos) is probably yellow, as Peter McQuillan has determined for early Little Joe flights.
The antenna canister is probably white, based on nothing more than a wild-assed guess and the presence of white dielectric panels on the production Mercury capsules..
Painting begins by shooting the parts with a coat of primer. I prefer the Tamiya L spray can, as it has a high solids content and helps absolve minor surface imperfection sins. This stuff is apparently brought in on a grey market basis, as it isn't officialy available in the US (perhaps due to toxic content?). After the parts dry overnight we can begin shooting the color coats.
Application of the color coats begins by spraying the tower lattice, nozzles, and tower base with Tamiya acrylic semi-gloss black, as this admittedly poorly-framed photo shows. The white thing sticking from the top of the tower lattice is a piece of styrene tube tacked on to assist with handling during the painting process, and the nozzles have been attached to a scrap of styrene sheet for the same reason.
I enjoy working with the Tamiya acrylics due to their consistent results, fast drying characteristics, and the fact that I can quickly clean the airbrush with Windex between colors. Until this paint session, I was also batting 1.000 over the past decade with the Tamiya enamel spray cans, but something went horribly wrong that I don't care to document here. This unfortunate event led to an hour of sanding bad paint off of the capsule skin, but a decent recovery was made. Note to self: never paint with lacquer in high humidity...
The picture on the right shows the capsule after the save from the paint disaster, with the white base coat and the orange roll pattern airbrushed on. After this photo was taken, the recovery section was masked for a shot of flat aluminum. Sorry, but I didn't have the camera with me and I was on a roll...
With all of the individual components painted (and in some cases, repainted) it's a simple matter to stick everything together.
Click on image for high-resolution version
Here's a shot of the finished model, which was displayed at the 2006 Austin Scale Model Show. Turn-in for the show was at 12:30 PM, and the decals emerged from the printer at 10:30 AM. We were on the road an hour later, so we just squeaked in under the wire. The haste with which the decals were applied is evidenced by the fact that the lower access hatch decal got bumped somewhere along the way, and is completely whacked (click on the image above to take a close look at the square decal near the base and you'll see what I mean.). The next time something gets sprayed with a matte finish the Beach Abort model will also get a coat, as time simply ran out for that step.
Construction of the Beach Abort model was a very rewarding exercise with regard to the larger Little Joe construction process, as it exposed a couple of weak spots that will need tweaking:
* The back side of the escape motor aft closure needs to be detailed; an additional part will be created that can be sandwiched with the existing part.
* The escape tower base is far too simple a part, and probably not strong enough for a flying model. Fortunately some additional references have come to light that will assist in making a better component.
* The castings for the recovery canister and antenna section need to be refined. Discussions with John Pursley on this subject will lead to some future experimentation with centrifugal casting.
* The lift eyes on the recovery canister just don't seem right, and are in danger of being replaced with photoetched parts. There are a number of other LJ parts that could be made from photoetch, such as assorted antennas, access hatches, and escape tower cable raceways.
Back to part 1: Capsule assembly...
Back to part 2: Escape Tower assembly...
Back to part 3: Transition assembly...
Back to part 4: Boilerplate assembly...
Back to part 5: Fin assembly...