Saturn V Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

The Saturn V (popularly known as the Moon Rocket) was a multistage liquid-fuel expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs. It was the physically largest production (but not designed) model of the Saturn family of rockets designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph.

A total of 13 Saturn V rockets were launched from 1967 to 1973, with a perfect launch record. The main payloads of the rocket were the Apollo spacecraft which carried the NASA astronauts to the Moon. It also launched the Skylab space station.

Background

In the early 1960s the Soviet Union had beaten the United States in many firsts of space flight; most importantly the launch of the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 in 1957, and Yuri Gagarin's first manned flight in 1961. The next major goal, and an achievement which would be rewarded with space leadership in the eyes of the world, was a manned Moon landing. Saturn V was the launch vehicle USA chose to turn the tide of the space race.

In 1961, when President Kennedy announced that America would try to get to the Moon by the end of the decade, there was nothing in the arsenal of the United States (or in fact anywhere in the world) that could launch a manned spacecraft to the Moon in one piece. The Saturn I was in development but had not yet flown and, due to its small size, would require several launches to place in orbit all the components of a lunar spacecraft.

On January 10, 1962, NASA announced plans to build the Saturn V, though at that point it was called the Saturn C-5. In 1963, the first engines were produced. They were qualified for manned flight in October 1966. After intensive design and testing of several years, the rocket was first launched on November 9, 1967 with the Apollo 4 unmanned spacecraft on board.

Technology

The Saturn V is arguably one of the most impressive machines in human history. Over 110 m high and 10 m in diameter, with a total mass of three thousand metric tonnes and a payload capacity of 118,000 kg to LEO, the Saturn V dwarfed and overpowered all other rockets which have ever successfully flown, with the exception of the Soviet Energia booster.

Saturn V was designed by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. It used the new powerful F-1 and J-2 rocket engines for propulsion. Designers decided early on to attempt to use as much technology from the Saturn I program as possible. As such the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn V was based on the S-IV second stage of the Saturn I. The instrument unit that controlled the Saturn V shared characteristics with that carried by the Saturn I.

Stages

Saturn V consisted of three separate stages and the instrument unit, which were developed by various contractors of NASA.

• The S-IC first stage was built by The Boeing Company. As with almost every rocket stage, most of its mass of over two thousand metric tonnes at launch was fuel, in this case RP-1 rocket fuel and liquid oxygen oxidiser. It was 42 meters tall and 10 meters in diameter, and provided 33.4 MN of thrust to get the rocket through the first 61 kilometers of ascent. The five F-1 engines were arranged in a cross pattern. The center engine was fixed, while the four on the outer ring could be hydraulically turned to control the rocket.

• The S-II second stage was built by North American Aviation. Using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen it had five J-2 engines in a similar arrangement to the S-IC. The second stage accelerated the Saturn V through the upper atmosphere with 5 MN of thrust.

• The S-IVB third stage was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It had one J-2 engine and was used twice during the mission: first for the orbit insertion after second stage cutoff, and then for the trans lunar injection (TLI) when the timing was right. It was not necessary for low earth orbit launches. This stage was also used as the second stage of the Saturn IB.

• The instrument unit, built by IBM, rode atop the third stage. It included guidance and telemetry systems for the rocket.

In the event of an abort requiring the destruction of the rocket, the range safety officer would send the signal for shaped explosive charges attached to its outer surfaces of the rocket to detonate. These would make cuts in fuel and oxidiser tanks to disperse the fuel quickly and to minimise mixing. After the Launch Escape Tower had been jettisoned the charges were safed.

Comparisons

engines of the S-IC first stage engines dwarf their creator, Wernher von Braun.]]

A few newer rockets have been able to successfully challenge the records set by Saturn V.

• The Soviet Energia was 46 MN heavy-lift booster to deliver up to 120-150 metric tonnes to LEO in the Vulkan configuration. It never flew at this capacity, and it was only launched twice.
• The Space Shuttle generates a peak thrust of 34.8 MN, although payload capacity to LEO (excl. Shuttle Orbiter itself) is only 28,800 kg.

engines hefted the Saturn V from a stop to near orbital speeds each providing 1.5 million pounds (6.7 million newtons) of thrust.]]

These parts of the conversation between the mission control and the astronauts of the Apollo 13 mission demonstrate the details of the timing of the launches as well as the capabilities of the Saturn V.

S-IC sequence

Saturn V encountered Maximum Dynamic Pressure (Max Q) at about 1 minute 20 seconds into the flight (altitude 12.5 km, 4 km downrange, velocity 1,600 km/h).]] At about 99 seconds (this depended on the actual atmospheric conditions) was the point of the flight with the Maximum Dynamic Pressure (Max Q). 

At 135.5 seconds the center engine shut down. This was again to reduce the structural load on the rocket, as opposed to having all the engines shutting down at once. The crew also experienced their greatest acceleration during the launch phase just before first stage cut off with 4 g

• 00:02:36 "Coming up on thirty miles altitude."

• 00:02:44 "Staging."

The second stage then burned for 6 minutes to propel the craft to 185 km and 24,600 km/h, nearly at orbital velocity. Apollo 13 had a problem with a premature shutdown of the center engine of the S-II. This had little effect on the mission but the second stage was used for about 10 seconds longer than planned to compensate. See Apollo abort modes for more information about the various abort modes that could have been used during a launch.

• 00:02:50 "S-II ignition."

• 00:03:00 "13, Houston. Trajectory's good, thrust is good."
• 00:03:20 "We confirm skirt sep (separation). Roger, tower jett. Mode two, Jim. Looking good."

The second part of the ignition was that about 30 seconds after the first stage separated, the aft interstage separates from the second stage. This was a precisely controlled manouver as the interstage must not touch the engines and only had a clearance of one meter.

At the same time as the interstage separated, Launch Escape System was jettisoned.

• 00:05:30 "And at five minutes, thirty seconds into the launch, we continue to look very good on the second stage. Jim Lovell just reported the inboard engine has shut down as scheduled."

• 00:09:15 "Our predicted shutdown time on the second stage is 9 minutes, 48 seconds, Flight Director Milton (L.) Windler (Maroon Team) getting a staging status now from his flight controllers."

• 00:09:49 "Staging."

S-IVB sequence

The third stage burned for a further 2.5 minutes, about 12 minutes after launch. The third stage remained attached while the spacecraft orbited the Earth two and a half times in a 'parking orbit' while astronauts examined the spacecraft and rocket to make sure everything functioned nominally.

• 00:09:51 "And S-IV ignition."

• 00:10:32 "At ten minutes thirty seconds we are now one-hundred two in altitude, one-thousand eighty miles downrange."
• 00:13:08 "Apollo thirteen, Houston. You have a go orbit, all sources and the booster is safe. Over."
• 00:15:05 "Apollo 13, Houston. You're preliminary orbit down here is one-hundred two point five times one-hundred point three and everything is looking good."

• 02:35:44 "Ignition, Houston."

flight in Earth orbit. Although Apollo 7 used a Saturn IB booster, the S-IVB stage was used on both the Saturn IB and Saturn V]] The third stage reignited at TLI to propel the spacecraft to the Moon. The S-IVB burns for almost 6 minutes so that the total spacecraft velocity at cutoff is over 10 km/s.

A couple of hours after TLI the Apollo Command Service Module (CSM) separated from the third stage, turned 180 degrees, and docked with the Lunar Module (LM) which rode below the CSM during launch. The CSM and LM then separated from the third stage.

If it was to remain on the same trajectory as the spacecraft, the booster could have presented a hazard later in the mission, so the remaining propellant in its tanks vented out of the engine, changing its trajectory. Controllers targeted the third stage either into a solar orbit or, as in the case of the third stages from Apollo 13 onwards, directed it to impact the Moon. Seismometers left behind by previous missions detected the impacts, and the information helped map the inside of the Moon.

Later use of Saturn V systems

space station to low Earth orbit in place of the third stage.]]

The Space Shuttle was initially conceived of as a cargo transport to be used in concert with the Saturn V. The Shuttle would handle space station logistics, while Saturn V would launch components. Lack of funding for a second Saturn V production run killed this plan and left the United States without a heavy-lift booster for the next 30 years (and counting). Some in the U.S. space community have come to lament this situation, as continued production would have allowed the International Space Station to have been lofted with just a handful of launches.

Wernher von Braun and others also had plans for a rocket that would have featured eight F-1 engines in its first stage allowing it to launch a manned spacecraft on a direct ascent flight to the Moon. Other plans for the Saturn V called for using a Centaur as an upper stage or adding strap-on boosters. These enhancements would have increased its ability to send large unmanned spacecraft to the outer planets or manned spacecraft to Mars. The second production run of Saturn Vs (had it happened) would very likely have used the F-1A engine in its first stage, providing a substantial performance boost over the first run. Other likely changes would have been the removal of the fins, since they turned out to provide little benefit when compaired to their weight; a stretched S-IC first stage to support the more powerful F-1As; and uprated J-2s for the upper stages. Saturn V was also to be the launch vehicle for the nuclear rocket stage RIFT test program and the later NERVA. U.S. proposals for a rocket larger than the Saturn V from the late 1950s through the early 1980s were generally called Nova. Over thirty different large rocket proposals carried the Nova name.

Saturn V vehicles and launches

Currently there are three Saturn Vs on display, all lying on the ground:

• At the Johnson Space Center made up of first stage of SA-514, the second stage from SA-515 and the third stage from SA-513.
• At the Kennedy Space Center made up of S-IC-T (test stage) and the second and third stages from SA-514.
• At the U.S. Space & Rocket Center;, Huntsville, Alabama made up of S-IC-D, S-II-F/D and S-IVB-D (all test stages not meant for actual flight).

A popular, untrue urban legend, started in 1996, states that NASA has lost or destroyed the blueprints or other plans for the Saturn V. In fact, the plans still exist on microfilm at the Marshall Space Flight Center, though it seems unlikely that future engineers will find that the plans will come in handy after the subsequent 40-plus years of advances in rocket science.

References

• Bilstein, Roger E. (1980). Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles. NASA SP-4206. ISBN 0-16-048909-1.
  • Available for reading on-line: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4206/sp4206.htm
  • and in softcover through the U.S. Government Printing Office: http://history.nasa.gov/gpo/order.html
• Apollo Saturn Reference Page
• Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
• Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles. NASA SP-4206 (PDF format)
• Saturn illustrated chronology: Saturn's first eleven years, April 1957 - April 1968 (PDF format)
• Moonport: A history of Apollo launch facilities and operations
• Saturn 5 launch vehicle flight evaluation report: AS-501 Apollo 4 mission (PDF format)
• Saturn 5 launch vehicle flight evaluation report: AS-508 Apollo 13 mission (PDF format)
• Saturn V Flight Manual - SA-503 (PDF format)
• Saturn V Press Kit
• Excerpts from the Apollo 13 Transcript

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