Saturn-Apollo 5 (SA-5) was the first launch of the Block II

Saturn I The Saturn I was a rocket designed as the United States' first medium lift launch vehicle for up to low Earth orbit Payload (air and space craft), payloads.Terminology has changed since the 1960s; back then, 20,000 pounds was considered "heavy l ...

rocket and was part of 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 ...

. In 1963, President Kennedy identified this launch as the one which would place US lift capability ahead of the Soviets, after being behind for more than six years since

Sputnik Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space progra ...

Upgrades and objectives

The major changes that occurred on SA-5 were that for the first time the Saturn I would fly with two stages - the S-I first stage and the

S-IV The S-IV was the Multistage rocket, second stage of the Saturn I rocket used by NASA for early flights in the Apollo program. The S-IV was manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company and later modified by them to the S-IVB, a similar but distinc ...

second stage. The second stage featured six engines burning

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen () is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecule, molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point (thermodynamics), critical point of 33 Kelvins, ...

. Although this engine design (

RL10 The RL10 is a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine built in the United States by Aerojet Rocketdyne that burns cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. Modern versions produce up to of thrust per engine in vacuum. RL10 version ...

) was meant to be tested several years earlier in the

Centaur A centaur ( ; ; ), occasionally hippocentaur, also called Ixionidae (), is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly. In one version o ...

upper stage, in the end the first Centaur was launched only two months before SA-5. This rocket stage was delivered to the Cape by a modified B-377 aircraft, the ''

Aero Spacelines Pregnant Guppy The Aero Spacelines Pregnant Guppy was a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft built in the United States and used for ferrying outsize cargo, outsized cargo items, most notably components of NASA's Apollo program. The Pregnant Guppy was the first of ...

''. Other major design change included the enlargement of the fuel tanks on the first stage. For the first time the rocket would carry its planned 750,000 lb (340,000 kg) of propellant and would use eight upgraded engines producing a thrust each of 188,000 lbf (836 kN). The first stage also featured for the first time eight fins for added stability during flight. As with the earlier flight the rocket would still carry only a

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

nosecone instead of a boilerplate Apollo spacecraft. Also the guidance and control computer on the rocket was positioned above the second stage. This was where it would be located on

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 ...

flights. The Instrument Unit controlled the ascent of the rocket through the atmosphere, automatically compensating for any winds or loss of thrust during the ascent. For the first time in the

, this flight would be an orbital mission. This was possible because of the upgraded first stage and the addition of the second stage. It would enter into an

elliptical orbit In astrodynamics or celestial mechanics, an elliptical orbit or eccentric orbit is an orbit with an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity of less than 1; this includes the special case of a circular orbit, with eccentricity equal to 0. Some or ...

and re-enter later as its orbit decayed. President Kennedy referred specifically to this launch in a speech at Brooks AFB in

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

, Texas, on November 21, 1963, the day before he was assassinated. He said: :And in December, while I do not regard our mastery of space as anywhere near complete, while I recognize that there are still areas where we are behind – at least in one area, the size of the booster – this year I hope the United States will be ahead.

Flight

The first scheduled launch attempt was for 27 January 1964, with all going well until 93% of the

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) had been loaded into the first stage. At this time, the ground crews switched it from a fast fill to a replenish system. However, the LOX in the tanks began to fall, i.e., it was not being replenished. The cause was found to be a blind flange (a plate without an opening) in the line. This could not be removed easily and the launch had to be postponed for two days. The second launch attempt had no such problems and lifted off into overcast skies at January 29, 1964, 11:25 EST. The

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 ...

sent back 1,183 measurements to the ground during the flight while at the same time it was tracked by six telescopes. For the first 1000 meters the rocket was filmed by 13 cameras that looked for any pitch, yaw, and roll movements. The separation of the two rocket stages was filmed by eight cameras that themselves separated from the rocket to be recovered downrange in the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. The whole stage separation system worked perfectly with the retrorockets firing on the first stage to decelerate it and ullage rockets on the S-IV firing to settle its fuel to aft of the stage. After an eight-minute burn, the second stage entered into a orbit. At 16,965 kg (37,401 lb) it was the largest

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

ever to go into orbit at that time. However, the achievement of

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

orbit was not an objective of the mission but merely a bonus. It did show to the American public that the United States could build

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

s as large as those of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

References

External links

*
The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology

NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive
* ttp://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/sa-5/sa-5.html NASA Apollo Mission SA-5
Stages to Saturn
{{Use American English, date=January 2014 Apollo program Spacecraft launched in 1964 Test spaceflights Spacecraft launched by Saturn rockets Saturn I