Saturn V is a retired American

super heavy-lift launch vehicle A super heavy-lift launch vehicle can lift to low Earth orbit more than by United States (NASA) classification or by Russian classification. It is the most capable launch vehicle classification by mass to orbit, exceeding that of the heavy-lif ...

developed by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

under the Apollo program for human

exploration of the Moon The physical exploration of the Moon began when '' Luna 2'', a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, made an impact on the surface of the Moon on September 14, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of exploration had been observatio ...

. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 1967 to 1973. It was used for nine crewed flights to the Moon, and to launch

Skylab Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operation ...

, the first American

space station A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station ...

. the Saturn V remains the only launch vehicle to carry humans beyond

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

(LEO). Saturn V holds records for the heaviest payload launched and largest payload capacity to low Earth orbit: , which included the third stage and unburned

propellant A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or other motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the ...

needed to send the

Apollo command and service module The Apollo command and service module (CSM) was one of two principal components of the United States Apollo (spacecraft), Apollo spacecraft, used for the Apollo program, which landed astronauts on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. The CSM functio ...

and

Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed ...

to the Moon. The largest production model of the

Saturn family of rockets Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; ...

, the Saturn V was designed under the direction of

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

at the

Marshall Space Flight Center The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama ( Huntsville postal address), is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. As the largest NASA center, MSFC's first ...

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in th ...

; the lead contractors were

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...

North American Aviation North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included: the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the ...

Douglas Aircraft Company The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated a ...

, and IBM. A total of 15 flight-capable vehicles were built, plus three for ground testing. Thirteen were launched from

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 National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 196 ...

with no loss of crew or

payload Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...

. A total of 24 astronauts were launched to the Moon from

Apollo 8 Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. The ...

(December 1968) to Apollo 17 (December 1972).

History

Background

In September 1945, the U.S. government brought the German rocket technologist

and over 1,500 German rocket engineers and technicians to the United States in

Operation Paperclip Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...

, a program authorized by President Truman. Von Braun, who had helped create the V-2 rocket, was assigned to the Army's rocket design division. Between 1945 and 1958, his work was restricted to conveying the ideas and methods behind the V-2 to American engineers, though he wrote books and articles in popular magazines. This approach changed in 1957, when the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 atop an R-7 ICBM, which could carry a thermonuclear warhead to the U.S. The Army and government began taking serious steps towards sending Americans into space. They turned to von Braun's team, who had created and experimented with the Jupiter series of rockets. The Juno I rocket launched the first American satellite in January 1958. Von Braun considered the Jupiter series to be a prototype and referred to it as "an infant Saturn".

Saturn development

Named for the next planet after Jupiter, the Saturn design evolved from the Jupiter series rockets. Between 1960 and 1962, the

(MSFC) designed a series of Saturn rockets that could be deployed for various Earth

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such a ...

or lunar missions. NASA planned to use the Saturn C-3 as part of the Earth orbit rendezvous (EOR) method, with at least two or three launches needed for a single lunar mission. However, the MSFC planned an even bigger rocket, the C-4, which would use four F-1 engines in its first stage, an enlarged C-3 second stage, and the

S-IVB The S-IVB (pronounced "S-four-B") was the third stage on the Saturn V and second stage on the Saturn IB launch vehicles. Built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, it had one J-2 rocket engine. For lunar missions it was fired twice: first for Earth ...

, a stage with a single J-2 engine, as its third stage. The C-4 would need only two launches to carry out an EOR lunar mission. On January 10, 1962, NASA announced plans to build the C-5. The three-stage rocket would consist of the S-IC first stage, with five F-1 engines; the S-II second stage, with five J-2 engines; and the S-IVB third stage, with a single J-2 engine. The C-5 would undergo component testing even before the first model was constructed. The S-IVB third stage would be used as the second stage for the C-1B, which would serve both to demonstrate proof of concept and feasibility for the C-5, but would also provide flight data critical to the development of the C-5. Rather than undergoing testing for each major component, the C-5 would be tested in an "all-up" fashion, meaning that the first test flight of the rocket would include complete versions of all three stages. By testing all components at once, far fewer test flights would be required before a crewed launch. The C-5 was confirmed as NASA's choice for the Apollo program in early 1962, and was named the Saturn V. The C-1 became the Saturn I and C-1B became Saturn IB. Von Braun headed a team at the MSFC to build a vehicle capable of launching a crewed spacecraft to the Moon. During these revisions, the team rejected the single engine of the V-2's design and moved to a multiple-engine design. The Saturn V's final design had several key features. F-1 engines were chosen for the 1st stage, while new liquid hydrogen propulsion system called J-2 for the 2nd and 3rd stage. NASA had finalized its plans to proceed with von Braun's Saturn designs, and the Apollo space program gained speed. With the configuration finalized, NASA turned its attention to mission profiles. There was a controversy between using a

lunar orbit rendezvous Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions in the 1960s and 1970s. In a LOR mission, a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar lander travel to ...

for the lunar module or an Earth orbit rendezvous. The Manned Space Flight Management Council preferred LOR while the President's Scientific Advisory Committee preferred EOR. After a round of studies,

James Webb James, Jim or Jimmy Webb may refer to: Arts *Jim Webb (born 1946), American author, also politician (see below) *James Webb (historian) (1946–1980), Scottish historian *James Webb (painter) (1825–1895), British painter * James Webb (South Afr ...

confirmed on November 7 that a lunar orbit rendezvous for the lunar module was chosen. The stages were designed by von Braun's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, and outside contractors were chosen for the construction: Boeing (

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, most of its mass of more than at launch was propellant, in this cas ...

), North American Aviation (

S-II The S-II (pronounced "S-two") was the second stage of the Saturn V rocket. It was built by North American Aviation. Using liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) it had five J-2 engines in a quincunx pattern. The second stage accelerated ...

), Douglas Aircraft (

), and IBM ( instrument unit).

Selection for Apollo lunar landing

Early in the planning process, NASA considered three methods for the Moon mission: Earth orbit rendezvous (EOR),

direct ascent Direct ascent is a method of landing a spacecraft on the Moon or another planetary surface directly, without first assembling the vehicle in Earth orbit, or carrying a separate landing vehicle into orbit around the target body. It was proposed as ...

, and

(LOR). A direct ascent configuration would require an extremely large rocket to send a three-man spacecraft to land directly on the lunar surface. An EOR would launch the direct-landing spacecraft in two smaller parts which would combine in Earth orbit. A LOR mission would involve a single rocket launching two spacecraft: a

mother ship A mother ship, mothership or mother-ship is a large vehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles. A mother ship may be a maritime ship, aircraft, or spacecraft. Examples include bomber aircraft, bombers converted to carry e ...

, and a smaller, two-man landing module which would rendezvous back with the main spacecraft in lunar orbit. The lander would be discarded and the mother ship would return home. At first, NASA dismissed LOR as a riskier option, as a

space rendezvous A space rendezvous () is a set of orbital maneuvers during which two spacecraft, one of which is often a space station, arrive at the same orbit and approach to a very close distance (e.g. within visual contact). Rendezvous requires a precise m ...

had yet to be performed in Earth orbit, much less in lunar orbit. Several NASA officials, including Langley Research Center engineer John Houbolt and NASA Administrator George Low, argued that a lunar orbit rendezvous provided the simplest landing on the Moon with the most cost–efficient launch vehicle, and the best chance to accomplish the lunar landing within the decade. Other NASA officials became convinced, and LOR was then officially selected as the mission configuration for the Apollo program on November 7, 1962.

Arthur Rudolph Arthur Louis Hugo Rudolph (November 9, 1906 – January 1, 1996) was a German rocket engineer who was a leader of the effort to develop the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany. After World War II, the United States Government's Office of Strategic Servic ...

became the project director of the Saturn V rocket program in August 1963. He developed the requirements for the rocket system and the mission plan for the Apollo program. The first Saturn V launch lifted off from Kennedy Space Center and performed flawlessly on November 9, 1967, Rudolph's birthday. He was then assigned as the special assistant to the director of MSFC in May 1968 and subsequently retired from NASA on January 1, 1969. On July 16, 1969, the Saturn V launched

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, a ...

, putting man on the Moon.

Launch history

Description

The size and payload capacity of the Saturn V dwarfed all other previous rockets successfully flown at that time. With the Apollo spacecraft on top, it stood tall, and, ignoring the fins, was in diameter. Fully fueled, the Saturn V weighed and had a low Earth orbit (LEO) payload capacity originally estimated at , but was designed to send at least to the Moon. Later upgrades increased that capacity; on the final three Apollo lunar missions, it sent up to to the Moon. (It was never used to launch its full LEO payload capability.) At a height of , the Saturn V stood taller than the Statue of Liberty from the ground to the torch, and taller than the

Elizabeth Tower Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England, and the name is frequently extended to refer also to the clock and the clock tower. The official ...

, which houses Big Ben at the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank ...

. In contrast, the

Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, designed for NASA's Project Mercury, was the first American crewed space booster. It was used for six sub-orbital Mercury flights from 1960–1961; culminating with the launch of the first, and 11 weeks l ...

used on '' Freedom 7'', the first crewed American spaceflight, was approximately longer than the

stage and delivered less sea level thrust () than the

Launch Escape System A launch escape system (LES) or launch abort system (LAS) is a crew-safety system connected to a space capsule that can be used to quickly separate the capsule from its launch vehicle in case of an emergency requiring the abort of the launch, suc ...

rocket ( sea level thrust) mounted atop the Apollo command module. The Apollo LES fired for a much shorter time than the Mercury-Redstone (3.2 seconds vs. 143.5 seconds). The Saturn V was principally designed by the

, although numerous major systems, including propulsion, were designed by subcontractors. It used the powerful F-1 and J-2

rocket engine A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive Jet (fluid), jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, i ...

s for propulsion; they shattered the windows of nearby houses when they were tested at Stennis Space Center. Designers decided early on to attempt to use as much technology from the Saturn I program as possible. Consequently, the

-500 third stage of the Saturn V was based on the S-IVB-200 second stage of the

Saturn IB The Saturn IB (also known as the uprated Saturn I) was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It uprated the Saturn I by replacing the S-IV second stage (, 43, ...

. The instrument unit that controlled the Saturn V shared characteristics with the one carried by the Saturn IB. The Saturn V was primarily constructed of

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It h ...

. It was also made of

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resista ...

polyurethane Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) refers to a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethan ...

, cork and asbestos. Blueprints and other Saturn V plans are available on

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. F ...

at the Marshall Space Flight Center. It consisted of three stages—the

first stage,

second stage, and

third stage—and the instrument unit. All three stages used

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an a ...

(LOX) as the

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 ). In other words, an oxid ...

. The first stage used

RP-1 RP-1 (alternatively, Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) is a highly refined form of kerosene outwardly similar to jet fuel, used as rocket fuel. RP-1 provides a lower specific impulse than liquid hydrogen (LH2), but is cheaper, i ...

for fuel, while the second and third stages used

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen (LH2 or LH2) is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point of 33 K. However, for it to be in a fully l ...

(LH2). LH2 has a higher specific energy per unit mass than RP-1, which makes it more suitable for higher-energy orbits, such as the trans-lunar injection required for Apollo missions. Conversely, RP-1 offers higher energy density per unit volume and higher thrust than LH2, which makes it more suitable for reducing aerodynamic drag and gravity losses in the early stages of launch. If the first stage had used LH2, the volume required would have been more than three times greater, which is aerodynamically infeasible. The upper stages also used small solid-propellant ullage motors that helped to separate the stages during the launch, and to ensure that the liquid propellants were in a proper position to be drawn into the pumps.

S-IC first stage

Apollo 8 first stage in the Vehicle Assembly Building

The S-IC was built by the Boeing Company at the

Michoud Assembly Facility The Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) is an manufacturing complex owned by NASA in New Orleans East, a district within New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States. Organizationally it is part of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and is current ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Space Shuttle external tank The Space Shuttle external tank (ET) was the component of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle that contained the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. During lift-off and ascent it supplied the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the ...

s would later be built by Lockheed Martin. Most of its mass at launch was propellant:

fuel with

as the

. It was tall and in diameter, and provided over of thrust. The S-IC stage had a dry mass of about ; when fully fueled at launch, it had a total mass of . It was powered by five

Rocketdyne F-1 The F-1, commonly known as Rocketdyne F1, was a rocket engine developed by Rocketdyne. This engine uses a gas-generator cycle developed in the United States in the late 1950s and was used in the Saturn V rocket in the 1960s and early 1970s. Fiv ...

engines arrayed in a

quincunx A quincunx () is a geometric pattern consisting of five points arranged in a cross, with four of them forming a square or rectangle and a fifth at its center. The same pattern has other names, including "in saltire" or "in cross" in heraldry (de ...

. The center engine was held in a fixed position, while the four outer engines could be

hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...

ally turned with

gimbal A gimbal is a pivoted support that permits rotation of an object about an axis. A set of three gimbals, one mounted on the other with orthogonal pivot axes, may be used to allow an object mounted on the innermost gimbal to remain independent of ...

s to steer the rocket. In flight, the center engine was turned off about 26 seconds earlier than the outboard engines to limit acceleration. During launch, the S-IC fired its engines for 168 seconds (ignition occurred about 8.9 seconds before liftoff) and at engine cutoff, the vehicle was at an

altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...

of about , was downrange about , and was moving about . § 4.

S-II second stage

Saturn V, S-II Stage is Lifted into Test Stand - GPN-2000-000540

The S-II was built by

Seal Beach, California Seal Beach is a coastal city in Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,242, up from 24,168 at the 2010 census. Seal Beach is located in the westernmost corner of Orange County. To the northwest ...

. Using

and liquid oxygen, it had five

Rocketdyne J-2 The J-2 is a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine used on NASA's Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles. Built in the U.S. by Rocketdyne, the J-2 burned cryogenic liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) propellants, with each engine produci ...

engines in a similar arrangement to the S-IC, and also used the outer engines for control. The S-II was tall with a diameter of , identical to the S-IC, and thus was the largest

cryogenic In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures. The 13th IIR International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington DC in 1971) endorsed a universal definition of “cryogenics” and “cr ...

stage until the launch of the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

in 1981. The S-II had a dry mass of about ; when fully fueled, it weighed . The second stage accelerated the Saturn V through the upper atmosphere with of thrust in a vacuum. When loaded, significantly more than 90 percent of the mass of the stage was propellant; however, the ultra-lightweight design had led to two failures in structural testing. Instead of having an intertank structure to separate the two fuel tanks as was done in the S-IC, the S-II used a common bulkhead that was constructed from both the top of the LOX tank and bottom of the LH2 tank. It consisted of two

sheets separated by a honeycomb structure made of

phenolic resin Phenol formaldehyde resins (PF) or phenolic resins (also infrequently called phenoplasts) are synthetic polymers obtained by the reaction of phenol or substituted phenol with formaldehyde. Used as the basis for Bakelite, PFs were the first comm ...

. This bulkhead had to insulate against the temperature difference between the two tanks. The use of a common bulkhead saved by both eliminating one bulkhead and reducing the stage's length. Like the S-IC, the S-II was transported from its manufacturing plant to Cape Kennedy by sea.

S-IVB third stage

The

was built by the

Huntington Beach, California Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in Southern California, located southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. The city is named after American businessman Henry E. Huntington. The population was 198,711 during the 2020 census, maki ...

. It had one J-2 engine and used the same fuel as the S-II. The S-IVB used a common bulkhead to separate the two tanks. It was tall with a diameter of and was also designed with high mass efficiency, though not quite as aggressively as the S-II. The S-IVB had a dry mass of about and, fully fueled, weighed about . The S-IVB was the only rocket stage of the Saturn V small enough to be transported by the cargo plane

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 outsized cargo items, most notably components of NASA's Apollo program. The Pregnant Guppy was the first of the Guppy l ...

. For lunar missions it was fired twice: first for Earth orbit insertion after second stage cutoff, and then for translunar injection (TLI).

Instrument unit

The instrument unit was built by IBM and was placed on top of the third stage. It was constructed at the Space Systems Center in

. This computer controlled the operations of the rocket from just before liftoff until the S-IVB was discarded. It included guidance and

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', "remote", and ' ...

systems for the rocket. By measuring the acceleration and vehicle

attitude Attitude may refer to: Philosophy and psychology * Attitude (psychology), an individual's predisposed state of mind regarding a value * Metaphysics of presence * Propositional attitude, a relational mental state connecting a person to a prop ...

, it could calculate the position and velocity of the rocket and correct for any deviations.

Assembly

After the construction and ground testing of each stage was completed, it was shipped to the Kennedy Space Center. The first two stages were so massive that the only way to transport them was by barge. The S-IC, constructed in New Orleans, was transported down the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it ...

to the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United S ...

. After rounding

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

, the stages were transported up the Intra-Coastal Waterway to the

Vehicle Assembly Building The Vehicle Assembly Building (originally the Vertical Assembly Building), or VAB, is a large building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), designed to assemble large pre-manufactured space vehicle components, such as the massive Saturn V and th ...

(originally called the Vertical Assembly Building). This was essentially the same route which would be used later to ship

s. The S-II was constructed in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

and traveled to Florida via the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a Channel ( ...

. The third stage and Instrument Unit was carried by the

and

Super Guppy Super may refer to: Computing * SUPER (computer program), or Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, a video converter / player * Super (computer science), a keyword in object-oriented programming languages * Super key (keyboard butt ...

, but could also have been carried by barge if warranted. Upon arrival at the Vertical Assembly Building, each stage was inspected in a horizontal position before being oriented vertically. NASA also constructed large spool-shaped structures that could be used in place of stages if a particular stage was delayed. These spools had the same height and mass and contained the same electrical connections as the actual stages. NASA stacked (assembled) the Saturn V on a

Mobile Launcher In the military, vehicles such as trucks or tractor units can be used to transport or launch missiles (rockets with warheads), essentially a form of rocket artillery. History The missile vehicle may be a self-propelled unit or the missile hold ...

, which consisted of a Launch Umbilical Tower with nine swing arms (including the crew access arm), a "hammerhead" crane, and a water suppression system which was activated prior to launch. After assembly was completed, the entire stack was moved from the

(VAB) to the launch pad using the Crawler Transporter (CT). Built by the

Marion Power Shovel Company Marion Power Shovel Company was an American firm that designed, manufactured and sold steam shovels, power shovels, blast hole drills, excavators, and dragline excavators for use in the construction and mining industries. The company was a maj ...

(and later used for transporting the smaller and lighter Space Shuttle), the CT ran on four double-tracked treads, each with 57 "shoes". Each shoe weighed . This transporter was also required to keep the rocket level as it traveled the to the launch site, especially at the 3 percent grade encountered at the launch pad. The CT also carried the Mobile Service Structure (MSS), which allowed technicians access to the rocket until eight hours before launch, when it was moved to the "halfway" point on the Crawlerway (the junction between the VAB and the two launch pads).

Cost

From 1964 until 1973, $6.417 billion (equivalent to $ in ) in total was appropriated for the

Research and Development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

and flights of the Saturn V, with the maximum being in 1966 with $1.2 billion (equivalent to $ in ). That same year, NASA received its largest total budget of $4.5 billion, about 0.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States at that time. Two main reasons for the cancellation of the last three Apollo missions were the heavy investments in Saturn V and the ever-increasing costs of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

to the U.S. in money and resources. In the time frame from 1969 to 1971 the cost of launching a Saturn V Apollo mission was between $185,000,000 to $189,000,000, of which $110 million were used for the production of the vehicle (equivalent to $–$ in ).

Lunar mission launch sequence

The Saturn V carried all Apollo lunar missions, which were launched from Launch Complex 39 at the

John F. 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 National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968, ...

. After the rocket cleared the launch tower, flight control transferred to Mission Control at the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late ...

in Houston, Texas. An average mission used the rocket for a total of just 20 minutes. Although

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 to be used on crewed missions, as happen ...

experienced three engine failures, and

Apollo 13 Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted af ...

one engine shutdown, the onboard computers were able to compensate by burning the remaining engines longer to achieve parking orbit.

Range safety

In the event of an abort requiring the destruction of the rocket, the range safety officer would remotely shut down the engines and after several seconds send another command for the shaped explosive charges attached to the outer surfaces of the rocket to detonate. These would make cuts in fuel and oxidizer tanks to disperse the fuel quickly and to minimize mixing. The pause between these actions would give time for the crew to escape via the Launch Escape Tower or (in the later stages of the flight) the propulsion system of the Service module. A third command, "safe", was used after the S-IVB stage reached orbit to irreversibly deactivate the self-destruct system. The system was inactive as long as the rocket was still on the launch pad.

Startup sequence

The first stage burned for about 2 minutes and 41 seconds, lifting the rocket to an altitude of and a speed of and burning of propellant. At 8.9 seconds before launch, the first stage ignition sequence started. The center engine ignited first, followed by opposing outboard pairs at 300-millisecond intervals to reduce the structural loads on the rocket. When thrust had been confirmed by the onboard computers, the rocket was "soft-released" in two stages: first, the hold-down arms released the rocket, and second, as the rocket began to accelerate upwards, it was slowed by tapered metal pins pulled through holes for half a second. Once the rocket had lifted off, it could not safely settle back down onto the pad if the engines failed. The astronauts considered this one of the tensest moments in riding the Saturn V, for if the rocket did fail to lift off after release they had a low chance of survival given the large amounts of propellant. To improve safety, the Saturn Emergency Detection System (EDS) inhibited engine shutdown for the first 30 seconds of flight. If all three stages were to explode simultaneously on the launch pad, an unlikely event, the Saturn V had a total explosive yield of 543 tons of TNT or 0.543 kilotons (2,271,912,000,000 J or 155,143 lbs of weight loss), which is 0.222 kt for the first stage, 0.263 kt for the second stage and 0.068 kt for the third stage. (See Saturn V Instrument Unit) It took about 12 seconds for the rocket to clear the tower. During this time, it yawed 1.25 degrees away from the tower to ensure adequate clearance despite adverse winds; this yaw, although small, can be seen in launch photos taken from the east or west. At an altitude of the rocket rolled to the correct flight

azimuth An azimuth (; from ar, اَلسُّمُوت, as-sumūt, the directions) is an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system. More specifically, it is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north. Mathematicall ...

and then gradually pitched down until 38 seconds after second stage ignition. This pitch program was set according to the prevailing winds during the launch month. The four outboard engines also tilted toward the outside so that in the event of a premature outboard engine shutdown the remaining engines would thrust through the rocket's center of mass. The Saturn V reached at over in altitude. Much of the early portion of the flight was spent gaining altitude, with the required velocity coming later. The Saturn V broke the

sound barrier The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first approached the speed of sound, ...

at just over 1 minute at an altitude of between . At this point, shock collars, or condensation clouds, would form around the bottom of the command module and around the top of the second stage.

Max Q sequence

At about 80 seconds, the rocket experienced maximum dynamic pressure (max q). The dynamic pressure on a rocket varies with

air density The density of air or atmospheric density, denoted '' ρ'', is the mass per unit volume of Earth's atmosphere. Air density, like air pressure, decreases with increasing altitude. It also changes with variation in atmospheric pressure, temperature a ...

and the square of

relative velocity The relative velocity \vec_ (also \vec_ or \vec_) is the velocity of an object or observer B in the rest frame of another object or observer A. Classical mechanics In one dimension (non-relativistic) We begin with relative motion in the classi ...

. Although velocity continues to increase, air density decreases so quickly with altitude that dynamic pressure falls below max q. The propellant in just the S-IC made up about three-quarters of Saturn V's entire launch mass, and it was consumed at . Newton's second law of motion states that force is equal to mass multiplied by acceleration, or equivalently that acceleration is equal to force divided by mass, so as the mass decreased (and the force increased somewhat), acceleration rose. Including gravity, launch acceleration was only ''g'', i.e., the astronauts felt ''g'' while the rocket accelerated vertically at ''g''. As the rocket rapidly lost mass, total acceleration including gravity increased to nearly 4 ''g'' at T+135 seconds. At this point, the inboard (center) engine was shut down to prevent acceleration from increasing beyond 4 ''g''. When oxidizer or fuel depletion was sensed in the suction assemblies, the remaining four outboard engines were shut down. First stage separation occurred a little less than one second after this to allow for F-1 thrust tail-off. Eight small solid fuel separation motors backed the S-IC from the rest of the vehicle at an altitude of about . The first stage continued ballistically to an altitude of about and then fell in the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Afr ...

about downrange. The engine shutdown procedure was changed for the launch of Skylab to avoid damage to the

Apollo Telescope Mount The Apollo Telescope Mount, or ATM, was a crewed solar observatory that was a part of Skylab, the first American space station. It could observe the Sun in wavelengths ranging from soft X-rays, ultra-violet, and visible light. The ATM was manu ...

. Rather than shutting down all four outboard engines at once, they were shut down two at a time with a delay to reduce peak acceleration further.

S-II sequence

After S-IC separation, the S-II second stage burned for 6 minutes and propelled the craft to and , close to orbital velocity. For the first two uncrewed launches, eight solid-fuel ullage motors ignited for four seconds to accelerate the S-II stage, followed by the ignition of the five J-2 engines. For the first seven crewed Apollo missions only four ullage motors were used on the S-II, and they were eliminated for the final four launches. About 30 seconds after first stage separation, the interstage ring dropped from the second stage. This was done with an inertially fixed attitude—orientation around its

center of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force may ...

—so that the interstage, only from the outboard J-2 engines, would fall cleanly without hitting them, as the interstage could have potentially damaged two of the J-2 engines if it was attached to the S-IC. Shortly after interstage separation the

was also jettisoned. About 38 seconds after the second stage ignition the Saturn V switched from a preprogrammed trajectory to a "closed loop" or Iterative Guidance Mode. The instrument unit now computed in real time the most fuel-efficient trajectory toward its target orbit. If the instrument unit failed, the crew could switch control of the Saturn to the command module's computer, take manual control, or abort the flight. About 90 seconds before the second stage cutoff, the center engine shut down to reduce

longitudinal Longitudinal is a geometric term of location which may refer to: * Longitude ** Line of longitude, also called a meridian * Longitudinal engine, an internal combustion engine in which the crankshaft is oriented along the long axis of the vehicle, ...

pogo oscillations. At around this time, the LOX flow rate decreased, changing the mix ratio of the two propellants and ensuring that there would be as little propellant as possible left in the tanks at the end of second stage flight. This was done at a predetermined

delta-v Delta-''v'' (more known as " change in velocity"), symbolized as ∆''v'' and pronounced ''delta-vee'', as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such ...

. Five level sensors in the bottom of each S-II propellant tank were armed during S-II flight, allowing any two to trigger S-II cutoff and staging when they were uncovered. One second after the second stage cut off it separated and several seconds later the third stage ignited. Solid fuel

retro-rocket A retrorocket (short for ''retrograde rocket'') is a rocket engine providing thrust opposing the motion of a vehicle, thereby causing it to decelerate. They have mostly been used in spacecraft, with more limited use in short-runway aircraft la ...

s mounted on the interstage at the top of the S-II fired to back it away from the S-IVB. The

impacted about from the launch site. On the Apollo 13 mission, the inboard engine suffered from major pogo oscillation, resulting in an early automatic cutoff. To ensure sufficient velocity was reached, the remaining four engines were kept active for longer than planned. A pogo suppressor was fitted to later Apollo missions to avoid this, though the early engine 5 cutoff remained to reduce g-forces.

S-IVB sequence

Unlike the two-plane separation of the S-IC and S-II, the S-II and S-IVB stages separated with a single step. Although it was constructed as part of the third stage, the interstage remained attached to the second stage. The third stage did not use much fuel to get into LEO (Low Earth Orbit), because the second stage had done most of the job. During

, a typical lunar mission, the third stage burned for about 2.5 minutes until first cutoff at 11 minutes 40 seconds. At this point it was downrange and in a parking orbit at an altitude of and velocity of . The third stage remained attached to the spacecraft while it

ed the Earth one and a half times while astronauts and mission controllers prepared for translunar injection (TLI). This parking orbit was quite low by Earth orbit standards, and it would have been short-lived due to aerodynamic drag. For perspective, the current ISS orbits at an altitude of roughly , and requires a reboost roughly once a month. This was not a problem on a lunar mission because of the short stay in the parking orbit. The S-IVB also continued to thrust at a low level by venting gaseous hydrogen, to keep propellants settled in their tanks and prevent gaseous cavities from forming in propellant feed lines. This venting also maintained safe pressures as liquid hydrogen boiled off in the fuel tank. This venting thrust easily exceeded aerodynamic drag. For the final three Apollo flights, the temporary parking orbit was even lower (approximately ), to increase payload for these missions. The

Apollo 9 Apollo 9 (March 313, 1969) was the third human spaceflight in NASA's Apollo program. Flown in low Earth orbit, it was the second crewed Apollo mission that the United States launched via a Saturn V rocket, and was the first flight of the fu ...

Earth orbit mission was launched into the nominal orbit consistent with Apollo 11, but the spacecraft were able to use their own engines to raise the perigee high enough to sustain the 10-day mission. The Skylab was launched into a quite different orbit, with a perigee which sustained it for six years, and also a higher inclination to the equator (50 degrees versus 32.5 degrees for Apollo).

Lunar Module sequence

On Apollo 11, TLI came at 2 hours and 44 minutes after launch. The S-IVB burned for almost six minutes, giving the spacecraft a velocity close to the Earth's escape velocity of . This gave an energy-efficient transfer to lunar orbit, with the Moon helping to capture the spacecraft with a minimum of CSM fuel consumption. About 40 minutes after TLI, the

(CSM) separated from the third stage, turned 180 degrees, and docked with the Lunar Module (LM) that rode below the CSM during launch. The CSM and LM separated from the spent third stage 50 minutes later, in a maneuver known as transposition, docking, and extraction. If it were to remain on the same trajectory as the spacecraft, the S-IVB could have presented a collision hazard, so its remaining propellants were vented and the auxiliary propulsion system fired to move it away. For lunar missions before Apollo 13, the S-IVB was directed toward the Moon's trailing edge in its orbit so that the Moon would

slingshot A slingshot is a small hand-powered projectile weapon. The classic form consists of a Y-shaped frame, with two natural rubber strips or tubes attached to the upper two ends. The other ends of the strips lead back to a pocket that holds the pro ...

it beyond earth escape velocity and into solar orbit. From Apollo 13 onwards, controllers directed the S-IVB to hit the Moon.

Seismometer A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground noises and shaking such as caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The outp ...

s left behind by previous missions detected the impacts, and the information helped map the internal structure of the Moon.

Skylab sequence

In 1965, the

Apollo Applications Program The Apollo Applications Program (AAP) was created as early as 1966 by NASA headquarters to develop science-based human spaceflight missions using hardware developed for the Apollo program. AAP was the ultimate development of a number of officia ...

(AAP) was created to look into science missions that could be performed using Apollo hardware. Much of the planning centered on the idea of a space station. Wernher von Braun's earlier (1964) plans employed a " wet workshop" concept, with a spent

Saturn V second stage being launched into orbit and outfitted in space. The next year AAP studied a smaller station using the

second stage. By 1969, Apollo funding cuts eliminated the possibility of procuring more Apollo hardware and forced the cancellation of some later Moon landing flights. This freed up at least one Saturn V, allowing the wet workshop to be replaced with the "dry workshop" concept: the station (now known as Skylab) would be built on the ground from a surplus Saturn IB second stage and launched atop the first two live stages of a Saturn V. A backup station, constructed from a Saturn V third stage, was built and is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum. Skylab was the only launch not directly related to the Apollo lunar landing program. The only significant changes to the Saturn V from the Apollo configurations involved some modification to the S-II to act as the terminal stage for inserting the Skylab payload into Earth orbit, and to vent excess propellant after engine cutoff so the spent stage would not rupture in orbit. The S-II remained in orbit for almost two years, and made an uncontrolled re-entry on January 11, 1975. Three crews lived aboard Skylab from May 25, 1973, to February 8, 1974. Skylab remained in orbit until July 11, 1979.

Post-Apollo proposal

Saturn-Shuttle model at Udvar-Hazy Center

After Apollo, the Saturn V was planned to be the prime launch vehicle for Prospector to be launched to the Moon. Prospector was a proposed robotic rover, similar to the Soviet Lunokhod rovers Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2, the Voyager Mars probes, and a scaled-up version of the Voyager interplanetary probes. It was also to have been the launch vehicle for the nuclear rocket stage RIFT test program and for some versions of the later

NERVA Nerva (; originally Marcus Cocceius Nerva; 8 November 30 – 27 January 98) was Roman emperor from 96 to 98. Nerva became emperor when aged almost 66, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the succeeding rulers of the Flavian ...

. All of these planned uses of the Saturn V were cancelled, with cost being a major factor.

Edgar Cortright Edgar Maurice Cortright (July 29, 1923 – May 4, 2014) was a scientist and engineer, and senior official at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States. His most prominent positions during his career were Direct ...

, who had been the director of

NASA Langley The Langley Research Center (LaRC or NASA Langley), located in Hampton, Virginia, United States of America, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. It directly borders Langley Air Force Base and the Back River on the Chesapeake Bay. LaRC has foc ...

, stated decades later that "JPL never liked the big approach. They always argued against it. I probably was the leading proponent in using the Saturn V, and I lost. Probably very wise that I lost." The canceled second production run of Saturn Vs would very likely have used the F-1A engine in its first stage, providing a substantial performance boost. Other likely changes would have been the removal of the fins (which turned out to provide little benefit when compared to their weight), a stretched S-IC first stage to support the more powerful F-1As, and uprated J-2s or an

M-1 M1, M01 or M-1 may refer to: Arts, entertainment & media * WD-M01 Turn A Gundam, a mecha from the anime ''Turn A Gundam'' * M-1 (rapper), one half of hip hop duo Dead Prez * Korg M1, a keyboard synthesizer * Leica M1, a 1959 35 mm camera mo ...

for the upper stages. A number of alternate Saturn vehicles were proposed based on the Saturn V, ranging from the

Saturn INT-20 The Saturn INT-20 was a proposed intermediate-payload follow-on from the Apollo Saturn V launch vehicle. A conical-form interstage would be fitted on top of the S-IC stage to support the S-IVB stage, so it could be considered either a retrofitted ...

with an

stage and interstage mounted directly onto an

stage, through to the Saturn V-23(L) which would not only have five F-1 engines in the first stage, but also four strap-on boosters with two F-1 engines each, giving a total of thirteen F-1 engines firing at launch. Lack of a second Saturn V production run killed this plan and left the United States without a super heavy-lift launch vehicle. Some in the U.S. space community came to lament this situation, as continued production could have allowed the International Space Station, using a ''Skylab'' or '' Mir'' configuration with both U.S. and Russian docking ports, to be lifted with just a handful of launches. The Saturn-Shuttle concept also could have eliminated the

Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster The Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) was the first solid-propellant rocket to be used for primary propulsion on a vehicle used for human spaceflight. A pair of these provided 85% of the Space Shuttle's thrust at liftoff and for the first ...

s that ultimately precipitated the ''Challenger'' accident in 1986.

Proposed successors

Post-Apollo

Saturn V-Shuttle-Ares I-Ares V-Ares IV-SLS Block 1 comparison (2019)

U.S. proposals for a rocket larger than the Saturn V from the late 1950s through the early 1980s were generally called

Nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...

. Over thirty different large rocket proposals carried the Nova name, but none were developed. Wernher von Braun and others also had plans for a rocket that would have featured eight F-1 engines in its first stage, like the

Saturn C-8 The Saturn C-8 was the largest member of the Saturn series of rockets to be designed. It was a potential alternative to the Nova rocket, should NASA have chosen a direct ascent method of lunar exploration for the Apollo program. The first stage ...

, allowing a

flight to the Moon. Other plans for the Saturn V called for using a

Centaur A centaur ( ; grc, κένταυρος, kéntauros; ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse. Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as bein ...

as an upper stage or adding strap-on boosters. These enhancements would have enabled the launch of large robotic spacecraft to the outer planets or the sending of astronauts to

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

. Other Saturn V derivatives analyzed included the

Saturn MLV The Saturn MLV was a proposed concept family of rockets, intended as a follow-on to the Saturn V. MLV stands for "Modified Launch Vehicle". Vehicle configurations representative of several alternative uprating methods were specified by the Mars ...

family of "Modified Launch Vehicles", which would have almost doubled the payload lift capability of the standard Saturn V and were intended for use in a proposed mission to Mars by 1980. In 1968,

studied another Saturn-V derivative, the

Saturn C-5N The Saturn C-5N was a conceptual successor to the Saturn V launch vehicle which would have had a nuclear thermal third stage instead of the S-IVB used on the Saturn V. This one change would have increased the payload of the standard Saturn V to Low ...

, which included a

nuclear thermal rocket A nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) is a type of thermal rocket where the heat from a nuclear reaction, often nuclear fission, replaces the chemical energy of the rocket propellant, propellants in a chemical rocket. In an NTR, a working fluid, us ...

engine for the

third stage ''Third Stage'' is the third studio album by the American rock band Boston, released on September 26, 1986, on MCA Records. It was recorded at Boston co-founder Tom Scholz's Hideaway Studio over a long, strained, six-year period "between floods ...

of the vehicle. The Saturn C-5N would carry a considerably greater payload for

interplanetary spaceflight Interplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is the crewed or uncrewed travel between stars and planets, usually within a single planetary system. In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the ...

. Work on the nuclear engines, along with all

Saturn V ELV The Saturn V-ELV was to be an enlarged Saturn V with the addition of four Titan IV, Titan UA1207 solid rocket boosters derived from the Titan IV launch vehicle and liquid propellant stages derived from the conceptual Saturn MLV, Saturn MLV-V-4(S) ...

s, ended in 1973. The

Comet HLLV The Comet HLLV was a proposed super heavy-lift launch vehicle designed for NASA's First Lunar Outpost program, which was in the design phase from 1992 to 1993 under the Space Exploration Initiative. It was a Saturn V-derived launch vehicle with ...

was a massive

heavy lift launch vehicle A heavy-lift launch vehicle, HLV or HLLV, is an orbital launch vehicle capable of lifting between (by NASA classification) or between (by Russian classification) into low Earth orbit (LEO).50t payloads" , operational heavy-lift launch vehicl ...

designed for the First Lunar Outpost program, which was in the design phase from 1992 to 1993 under the

Space Exploration Initiative The Space Exploration Initiative was a 1989–1993 space public policy initiative of the George H. W. Bush administration. On July 20, 1989, the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, US President George H. W. Bush announced plans f ...

. It was a Saturn V derived launch vehicle with over twice the payload capability and would have relied completely on existing technology. All of the engines were modernized versions of their Apollo counterparts and the fuel tanks would be stretched. Its main goal was to support the First Lunar Outpost program and future crewed Mars missions. It was designed to be as cheap and easy to operate as possible.

Ares family

In 2006, as part of the proposed

Constellation program The Constellation program (abbreviated CxP) was a crewed spaceflight program developed by NASA, the space agency of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. The major goals of the program were "completion of the International Space Station" an ...

, NASA unveiled plans to construct two Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicles, the

Ares I Ares I was the crew launch vehicle that was being developed by NASA as part of the Constellation program. The name "Ares" refers to the Greek deity Ares, who is identified with the Roman god Mars. Ares I was originally known as the "Crew Launch ...

and

Ares V The Ares V (formerly known as the Cargo Launch Vehicle or CaLV) was the planned cargo launch component of the cancelled NASA Constellation program, which was to have replaced the Space Shuttle after its retirement in 2011. Ares V was also plan ...

, which would use some existing Space Shuttle and Saturn V hardware and infrastructure. The two rockets were intended to increase safety by specializing each vehicle for different tasks, Ares I for crew launches and Ares V for cargo launches.John P. Sumral
A New Heavy-Lift Capability for Space Exploration: NASA's Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle
NASA ''Through years of triumph and tragedy, direct experience and engineering risk analyses have concluded that separating the crew from the cargo during launch reduces safety risks and improves safety statistics.'' The original design of the heavy-lift Ares V, named in homage to the Saturn V, was in height and featured a core stage based on the Space Shuttle External Tank, with a diameter of . It was to be powered by five

RS-25 The Aerojet Rocketdyne 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 currently used on the Space Launch System (SLS). Designed and manufactur ...

s and two five-segment

s (SRBs). As the design evolved, the RS-25 engines were replaced with five RS-68 engines, the same engines used on the

Delta IV Delta IV is a group of five expendable launch systems in the Delta rocket family introduced in the early 2000s. Originally designed by Boeing's Defense, Space and Security division for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, t ...

. The switch from the RS-25 to the RS-68 was intended to reduce cost, as the latter was cheaper, simpler to manufacture, and more powerful than the RS-25, though the lower efficiency of the RS-68 required an increase in core stage diameter to , the same diameter as the Saturn V's S-IC and S-II stages. In 2008, NASA again redesigned the Ares V, lengthening the core stage, adding a sixth RS-68 engine, and increasing the SRBs to 5.5 segments each. This vehicle would have been tall and would have produced a total thrust of approximately at liftoff, more than the Saturn V or the Soviet

Energia Energia or Energiya may refer to: * Energia (corporation), or S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, a Russian design bureau and manufacturer ** Energia (rocket), a Soviet rocket designed by the company *Energia (company), a company th ...

, but less than the Soviet N-1. Projected to place approximately into orbit, the Ares V would have surpassed the Saturn V in payload capability. An upper stage, the Earth Departure Stage, would have utilized a more advanced version of the J-2 engine, the

J-2X The J-2X is a liquid-fueled cryogenic rocket engine that was planned for use on the Ares rockets of NASA's Constellation program, and later the Space Launch System. Built in the United States by Aerojet Rocketdyne (formerly, Pratt & Whitney R ...

. Ares V would have placed the

Altair Altair is the brightest star in the constellation of Aquila and the twelfth-brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation Alpha Aquilae, which is Latinised from α Aquilae and abbreviated Alpha Aql or ...

lunar landing vehicle into low Earth orbit. An Orion crew vehicle launched on Ares I would have docked with Altair, and the Earth Departure Stage would then send the combined stack to the Moon.

Space Launch System

After the cancellation of the Constellation program – and hence Ares I and Ares V – NASA announced the

Space Launch System The Space Launch System (SLS) is an American super heavy-lift expendable launch vehicle developed by NASA. As of 2022, SLS has the highest payload capacity of any rocket in operational service, as well as the greatest liftoff thrust of any r ...

(SLS) heavy-lift launch vehicle for beyond low Earth orbit space exploration. The SLS, similar to the original Ares V concept, is powered by four RS-25 engines and two five-segment SRBs. Its Block 1 configuration can lift approximately to LEO. The Block 1B configuration will add the Exploration Upper Stage, powered by four

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. Three RL10 ve ...

engines, to increase payload capacity. An eventual Block 2 variant will upgrade to advanced boosters, increasing LEO payload to at least . One proposal for advanced boosters would use a derivative of the Saturn V's F-1, the F-1B, and increase SLS payload to around to LEO. The F-1B is to have better

specific impulse Specific impulse (usually abbreviated ) is a measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine (a rocket using propellant or a jet engine using fuel) creates thrust. For engines whose reaction mass is only the fuel they carry, specific impulse is ...

and be cheaper than the F-1, with a simplified

combustion chamber A combustion chamber is part of an internal combustion engine in which the fuel/air mix is burned. For steam engines, the term has also been used for an extension of the firebox which is used to allow a more complete combustion process. Intern ...

and fewer engine parts, while producing of thrust at sea level, an increase over the approximate achieved by the mature

Apollo 15 Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to land on the Moon. It was the first J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greater focus on science than ea ...

F-1 engine,

Saturn V displays

* There are two displays at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville: ** SA-500D is on horizontal display made up of its S-IC-D, S-II-F/D and S-IVB-D. These were all test stages not meant for flight. This vehicle was displayed outdoors from 1969 to 2007, was restored, and is now displayed in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration. ** Vertical display (replica) built in 1999 located in an adjacent area. * There is one at the

made up of the first stage from SA-514, the second stage from SA-515, and the third stage from SA-513 (replaced for flight by the Skylab workshop). With stages arriving between 1977 and 1979, this was displayed in the open until its 2005 restoration when a structure was built around it for protection. This is the only display Saturn consisting entirely of stages intended to be launched. * Another one at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, made up of S-IC-T (test stage) and the second and third stages from SA-514. It was displayed outdoors for decades, then in 1996 was enclosed for protection from the elements in the Apollo/Saturn V Center. * The S-IC stage from SA-515 is on display at the

Infinity Science 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 at the Mississippi–Louisiana border. , it is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility. T ...

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Mis ...

. * The S-IVB stage from SA-515 was converted for use as a backup for Skylab, and is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. File:Saturn V Rocket -- Johnson Space Center.jpg, Saturn V Rocket --

File:Saturn V's F-1 engines.jpg, Saturn V's F-1 engines—Rocket Park,

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

File:Saturn V rocket booster National Air and Space Museum photo D Ramey Logan.jpg, National Air and Space Museum File:Davidson Center-27527-2.jpg, U.S. Space & Rocket Center File:Saturn V building Johnson Space Center.jpg, Johnson Space Center File:SaturnVcenter.JPG, Kennedy Space Center File:Skylab B Smithsonian.jpg, S-IVB stage as Skylab, National Air & Space Museum

Discarded stages

On September 3, 2002,

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either o ...

Bill Yeung discovered a suspected

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the Solar System#Inner solar system, inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic o ...

, which was given the discovery designation

J002E3 J002E3 is an object in space discovered on September 3, 2002, by amateur astronomer Bill Yeung. Initially thought to be an asteroid, it has since been tentatively identified as the S-IVB third stage of the Apollo 12 Saturn V rocket (designat ...

. It appeared to be in orbit around the Earth, and was soon discovered from spectral analysis to be covered in white

titanium dioxide Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium(IV) oxide or titania , is the inorganic compound with the chemical formula . When used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6 (PW6), or CI 77891. It is a white solid that is insoluble ...

, which was a major constituent of the paint used on the Saturn V. Calculation of orbital parameters led to tentative identification as being the Apollo 12 S-IVB stage. Mission controllers had planned to send Apollo 12's S-IVB into solar orbit after separation from the Apollo spacecraft, but it is believed the burn lasted too long, and hence did not send it close enough to the Moon, so it remained in a barely stable orbit around the Earth and Moon. In 1971, through a series of

gravitational perturbations In astronomy, perturbation is the complex motion of a massive body subjected to forces other than the gravitational attraction of a single other massive body. The other forces can include a third (fourth, fifth, etc.) body, resistance, as from ...

, it is believed to have entered in a solar orbit and then returned into weakly captured Earth orbit 31 years later. It left Earth orbit again in June 2003.

Notes

References

Sources

Books

* . Published by University Press of Florida in two volumes: ''Gateway to the Moon: Building the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex'', 2001, and ''Moon Launch!: A History of the Saturn-Apollo Launch Operations'', 2001 . * * * * * . * * * * * . * *

Journal articles

* {{NASA space program 1967 in spaceflight 1968 in spaceflight 1969 in spaceflight 1970 in spaceflight 1971 in spaceflight 1972 in spaceflight 1973 in spaceflight Apollo program hardware V Operation Paperclip Articles containing video clips Vehicles introduced in 1967 Wernher von Braun