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Launching of the Little Joe launch vehicle on November 4, 1959 took place at Wallops Island, Va. This was the first attempt to launch an instrumented capsule with a Little Joe booster. Only the LJ1A and the LJ6 used the space metal/chevron plates as heat reflector shields, as they kept shattering. Little Joe was used to test various components of the Mercury spacecraft, such as the emergency escape rockets.