S-IC-T is a

Saturn V The Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, had multistage rocket, three stages, and was powered by liquid-propel ...

first stage,

S-IC The S-IC (pronounced S-one-C) was the first stage of the American Saturn V rocket. The S-IC stage was manufactured by the Boeing Company. Like the first stages of most rockets, more than 90% of the mass at launch was propellant, in this case RP ...

rocket, of the three stage rocket system. S-IC-T was built by

Boeing Company The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

, under contract from

National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the United States's civil space program, aeronautics research and space research. Established in 1958, it su ...

, to be a static test

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

. The main role of the S-IC-T was the testing of the five

liquid fuel Liquid fuels are combustible or energy-generating molecules that can be harnessed to create mechanical energy, usually producing kinetic energy; they also must take the shape of their container. It is the fumes of liquid fuels that are flammable ...

rocket engine A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed Jet (fluid), jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stor ...

s to be used in the

Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...

. S-IC-T static test fired the rockets at NASA Mississippi Test Facility, now known as

Stennis Space Center The John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is a NASA rocket testing facility in Hancock County, Mississippi, United States, on the banks of the Pearl River (Mississippi–Louisiana), Pearl River at the Mississippi–Louisiana border. , it is NASA ...

. S-IC-T was assembled at the

Marshall Space Flight Center Marshall Space Flight Center (officially the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center; MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville postal address), is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government's ...

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is the List of municipalities in Alabama, most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city is estimated to be 241,114 in 2024, making it the List of United States cities by population, 100th-most populous ...

. S-IC-T was given the nickname T-Bird (Test Bird). The first burn test was on April 10, 1965. The Saturn V's S-IC-T rocket is a first stage of the

super heavy-lift launch vehicle A super heavy-lift launch vehicle is a rocket that can lift to low Earth orbit a "super heavy payload", which is defined as more than by the United States and as more than by Russia. It is the most capable launch vehicle classification by mass ...

. S-IC-T is now on display at

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

in Florida.

History

S-IC-T being taken to the B-2 Test Stand on March 1, 1965 S-IC-T at Kennedy Space Center in 2017, before being put in the indoor display hall Before S-IC-T, the first complete S-IC stage built, Boeing built prototype stages: SA-500F and SA-500D. These were used for testing the new S-IC first stage. Boeing Company was awarded the contract to build S-IC-T on March 6, 1963, from NASA. S-IC-T was also known as the ''All Systems Test Stage''. After being built at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, S-IC-T was loaded onto the barge Poseidon. Barge Poseidon was then floated 1,086.7 miles for six day, arriving at the B-2 Test Stand in Mississippi. The Barge Poseidon trip is 1,086.7 miles miles up the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...

and then down the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

. The S-IC-T was test fired at a newly built test firing facility, called the B-2 Test Stand (S-IC-T stage), in the west test area. B-2 Test Stand is now part of the

. S-IC-T was planned as a test rocket only and not to be used in the later Apollo program. The Saturn V rocket was used in the Apollo program to depart Earth's gravity. S-IC-T, like all following Saturn V's S-IC rockets used five Rocketdyne F-1 engines. The Rocketdyne F-1 engine was first tested in March 1959 and delivered to NASA in October 1963. S-IC-T was built starting in 1963 and complete in 1965. The S-IC-T tests were to verify that the S-IC stage could support the firing of all five Rocketdyne F-1 engines at the same time. The testing was also a test of the two large fuel tanks. The five Rocketdyne F-1 engines produced of thrust, the first burn of the most powerful rocket ever. The powerful rockets caused ground shaking and smoke filled the area from the engine flames. Thus, B-2 Test Stand earned the nickname ''the land of the earth shakers''. A crane was used to install S-IC-T into the B-2 Test Stand. Then the five F-1 engines were installed. The S-IC-T was filled with

RP-1 RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) and similar fuels like RG-1 and T-1 are highly refined kerosene formulations used as rocket fuel. Liquid-fueled rockets that use RP-1 as fuel are known as kerolox rockets. In their engines, RP- ...

rocket fuel and

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen, sometimes abbreviated as LOX or LOXygen, is a clear cyan liquid form of dioxygen . It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which is ongoing. Physical ...

(LOX)

oxidizer An oxidizing agent (also known as an oxidant, oxidizer, electron recipient, or electron acceptor) is a substance in a redox chemical reaction that gains or " accepts"/"receives" an electron from a (called the , , or ''electron donor''). In ot ...

. On the B-2 Test Stand, 18 test firings were completed over almost two years. On April 10, 1965, the first S-IC-T test was to fire one engine for 16.73 seconds. On April 16, S-IC-T fired all five engines for the first time for 6.5 seconds and reached the record 7.5 million pounds (33.36x106N) of thrust for the first time. The 7.5 million pounds of thrust was the power

Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( ; ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German–American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and '' Allgemeine SS'', the leading figure in the development of ...

specified for Apollo to depart to the moon. On August 5, 1965, a full burn test was done for -minute (150 seconds) on all five engines. Two more -minute full burn test were done. The last test was done in 1967. The test included testing the

gimbaled thrust Gimbaled thrust is the system of thrust vectoring used in most rockets, including the Space Shuttle program, Space Shuttle, the Saturn V lunar rockets, and the Falcon 9. Operation In a gimbaled thrust system, the engine or just the exhaust nozz ...

movement on the four outing engines. With the successful tests of S-IC-T, the Apollo program's Saturn V rocket was able to move forward to the next step, SA-501/ Apollo 4 with S-IC-1. With all testing completed, Boeing removed the S-IC-T from B-2 Test Stand on March 24, 1967. S-IC-T is now on display on its side, inside the Apollo-Saturn V Center museum at the Kennedy Space Center. Visitors are able walk under S-IC-T. The complete Saturn V rocket, that S-IC-T is part of, has been restored for display. S-IC-T is a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, listed in July 1980. Two other Saturn V Rocket sites were listed at the same time: Saturn V Rocket at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and the one at the Davidson Center for Space Exploration in Huntsville, Alabama.

S-IC-T specifications

S-IC-T specifications: *Height: *Diameter: *Mass: *Fuel, liquid oxygen and kerosene: *Kerosene RP-1: *Liquid oxygen: *Empty: *Intertank: *Five F-1 engines, each 10 tons *Static test of S-IC, first stage of Saturn V Rocket *Power: thrust or about 160 million horsepower, a record

B-2 Test Stand

To test S-IC-T a special test stand was built, the B-2 Test Stand, this held the rocket in place under full power test. B-2 Test Stand was designed in 1961 and construction started in June 1961. B-2 Test Stand was completed in spring 1965 at the NASA Mississippi Test Facility and the Pearl River Site, then the NASA Mississippi Test Operations, now known as Stennis Space Center since May 20, 1988 after John C. Stennis. Stennis Space Center operates under the Marshall Space Flight Center. B-2 Test Stand was built to be able to hold down of thrust. S-IC-T was first rocket tested on the B-2 Test Stand. Also on the B-2 Test Stand, was the testing of S-IC-1 ( Apollo 4), fired two times; S-IC-2 (

Apollo 6 Apollo 6 (April 4, 1968), also known as AS-502, was the third and final uncrewed flight in the United States' Apollo Program and the second test of the Saturn V launch vehicle. It qualified the Saturn V for use on crewed missions, and it was us ...

) fired once; and S-IC-3 (

Apollo 8 Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Sphere of influence (astrodynamics), Earth's gravitational sphere of influence, and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times ...

) fired one time. In 1974, the B-2 Test Stand was reconfigured to test engines,

RS-25 The RS-25, also known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), is a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine that was used on NASA's Space Shuttle and is used on the Space Launch System. Designed and manufactured in the United States by Rocketd ...

, for the

Space Shuttle program The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its ...

. Next the stand was change to test Russian RD-180 rocket engine in 1998, used on the Atlas rockets. The

Space Launch System The Space Launch System (SLS) is an American Super heavy-lift launch vehicle, super heavy-lift Expendable launch system, expendable launch vehicle used by NASA. As the primary launch vehicle of the Artemis program, Artemis Moon landing progra ...

liquid oxygen feed line was tested in 2014 on stand. A total of 12 S-IC stages were tested on B-2 stand. The first in April 1967 and the last was in October 1970. S-IC 15 was tested but was not used, S-IC 15 is on display at the Stennis Space Center's Infinity Space Center. The

RS-68 The RS-68 (Rocket System-68) was a liquid-fuel rocket engine that used liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) as propellants in a gas-generator cycle. It was the largest hydrogen-fueled rocket engine ever flown. Designed and manufacture ...

used on the Delta 4 Common Booster Core was tested from November 1999 to May 2001. Stennis Space Center has other test stands including: A-1/A-2 Test stands, A-3 Test stand, H-1 Test stand and E Test stand complex. The B-2 Test Stand has been renamed over the years, these include: *Building 4670 *Saturn Static Test Stand *Saturn V Booster Test Stand *Saturn V S-IC Static Test Stand *S-IC Static Test Complex *Advanced Engine Test Facility **B-2 Test Stand specifications: *Concrete: *Foundation depth: *Four concrete foundation leg walls: thick and tall *Crane with a boom, lift up to 195 tons *Max height: , including crane, (largest structure in Mississippi at the time) *Base floor space: by * of water a minute for cooling engine exhaust * of water per minute for vibro-acoustic protection *Hold down 53,000 kN (12,000,000 lbf) of thrust, less in current state.

Gallery

File:Poseidon_barge_transporting_Saturn_V_S-II.jpg, Poseidon barge transporting a Saturn V S-IC rocket from Alabama to Mississippi. The trip is 1,086.7 miles miles up the Tennessee River and then down the Mississippi River. File:CS-1 Stennis B2 January 12 2020.jpg, A Space Launch System Rocket Core at Stennis prior to being lifted onto the B2 test stand Saturn V vehicle configurations.jpg, Saturn V vehicle configurations with S-IC-T in the static firing stage File:S-IC engines and Von Braun.jpg,

with the F-1 engines of the Saturn V first stage at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center Stennis Space Center Test Stand.jpg, The B-2 Test Stand holding Space Shuttle component in 1987 B-1 Test Stand (95-625-5).jpeg, B-1 Test Stand in 1995 SSME is Hoisted into the B Test Stand (89-096-29).jpeg,

SSME The RS-25, also known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), is a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine that was used on NASA's Space Shuttle and is used on the Space Launch System. Designed and manufactured in the United States by Rocketd ...

is Hoisted into the B1 Test Stand in 1989 SSME Night Firing (92-810-5).jpeg, SSME Night Firing in 1992 Stennis Space Center Test Stand B.jpg, Stennis Space Center B1 Test Stand blast ports Image:SaturnV S-IC.jpg, Cutaway diagram of the S-IC. Image:apmisc-MSFC-6870792.jpg, Saturn V first stages S-1C-10, S-1C-11, and S-1C-9 at

Michoud Assembly Facility The Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) is an industrial complex for the manufacture and assembly line, structural assembly of aerospace vehicles and components. It is owned by NASA and located in Eastern New Orleans, New Orleans East, a section of N ...

. Saturn v schematic.svg, Saturn V schematic F-1 Engine at INFINITY Science Center.jpg, F-1 engine on display at INFINITY science center. Artemis I core stage hot fire test in the B-2 Test Stand (1).jpg,

Artemis I Artemis I, formerly Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), was an uncrewed Lunar orbit, Moon-orbiting mission that was launched in November 2022. As the first major spaceflight of NASA's Artemis program, Artemis I marked the agency's return to lunar e ...

core stage hot fire test in the B-2 Test Stand Hot Fire Test of SLS Rocket Core Stage (NHQ202101160005).jpg, Hot Fire Test of SLS Rocket Core Stage

References

External links