Talk:Saturn V/Archive 1

Citation Style
Given that this is a featured article, should we remove external links from the main body and transform them into proper inline citation style? Ahecht 17:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Engine-out capability
Some of the material on the Falcon V states that the Saturn V was the only other rocket to have engine-out capability, which prevented disasters on two of its launches. Can anyone confirm this from another source, and perhaps find out which launches they occurred on? --NeuronExMachina 06:41, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * This page states: "During the second stage bum, two of the five J-2 engines shut down prematurely. To the surprise and delight of NASA engineers, the vehicle didn't lose control." Haven't been able to find more info yet, though. --NeuronExMachina 06:46, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Here is the offical report on the Apollo 13 Saturn V launch Saturn V Launch Vehicle Flight Evaluation Report AS-508 Apollo 13 Mission (PDF Format). Page 84 (pdf page 84) describes the engine shutdowns.Rusty 20:09, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Apollo 6 also had premature shutdown of some of its second stage engines. Here is the offical report of the Apollo 6 launch. [http://klabs.org/history/history_docs/jsc_t/apollo_06_saturn_v.pdf
 * Saturn V Launch Vehicle Flight Evaluation Report AS-502 Apollo 6 Mission (PDF Format)]. Info about the engine shutdown starts on page 127 (pdf page 127). Rusty 20:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * As mentioned, the Saturn V had a number of early engine-outs before the 'pogo' problems were solved. However, I'd disagree with the original claim that it was the only other rocket to have an engine-out capability. At a minimum, the N-1 control system was designed to automatically shut down opposing rocket engines if one failed, and theoretically it could still reach orbit provided it didn't lose too many. Of course in reality it blew up every time it lost an engine, but that was because it had more serious problems than engines cutting out. MarkGrant

I made some rearrangements and added more text. Hope you like it - I'd like to get this back to the featured article candidates some day. Zaha 21:33, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Okay this change has been reverted. Although I think that some of the material added and changed was not perfect, a full revert was not really the answer. --enceladus 04:15, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is not bad!!!


 * I think we should add Zaha's edits to a temp page and review them more carefully. -Joseph (Talk) 04:28, 2004 Oct 7 (UTC)


 * Fine by me. What I was trying to achieve with the edit was mainly the reorganization of the text. Almost all of the old material is still there. I felt that it suffered from redundancy from many small edits (for example the Nova was discussed in two separate places). I tried to make the structure a bit more coherent. I started with a "background" section like before but removed some parts which really weren't about the history of the rocket. I created the "technology" section to gather one section for the scattered information about the technology of the rocket (using the "stages" section as a subsection and copying some information from the separate engine and stage pages, mostly stubs, to this page). The N-1 definitely should be mentioned in a moon rocket article. The lunar launch part I left much as it was, with the added astronaut comments (a typical launch timeline). Finally, the "all launches" part looked rather ugly with just a picture, so I merged it with "Saturn V vehicles and launches". Hopefully the people who actively edit this article will bother to actually compare the versions. My edit is by no means perfect, but the total revert by GeneralPatton is overkill (especially as he never contributed to the article). Zaha 15:03, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Rewrite
Finally got around to taking Zaha edit and doing some work on it. You can find it at Enceladus. What I down is rewritten the stage section and annoted the transcript part of the page as well as moving some stuff around. I used Zaha's edit as the basis so it doesn't contain any of the changes made since to the page. You're all welcome to come and look and edit it. --enceladus 04:36, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Okay no-one made any changes to my temp page, so I decided to make it the current Saturn V page --enceladus 05:38, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I looked at your temp page earlier (too bad I had too little time to do a thorough edit) and most of the changes and additions to my version were excellent, as is with the current version - however there are a few things I'd like to point out. Firstly, there are some obvious spelling errors and a in some places text which is hard to understand. Secondly, the current text is a mix of past and present tense. We must stick on either, not both. I'd suggest using past tense with Saturn V and other historical rockets, and present tense with existing things such as the Space Shuttle. I won't make any changes immediately though - I'll wait for a few days for discussion here before editing myself. Zaha 22:30, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Went through and fixed my tense issues and any spelling mistakes that I saw (ie seperate instead of separate - I always seem to have issues with that word). I've also tried to use American spellings even though I'm from New Zealand. What sentences did you find confusing? And remember to be bold about editing.--enceladus 02:07, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I revised the current text, best way to see the changes is a version comparison. Also two larger changes: 1)thought it fair to mention Ariane 5 (European space pride, heh-heh) along with Titan IV 2)as far as I know Apollo 13 only had one engine failure (two would have been a major problem as was with Apollo 6 where S-II (IIRC) even flew backwards for some time and the computer miraculously corrected). I refer to the engine as the center engine (which is the same as engine 5). I also put a possible alternative meaning to the lead section. This is growing to a fairly large article, so perhaps we shouldn't expand it much further (I recommend keeping abort modes in a separate one). Zaha 14:55, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Moved the alternate meaning to the top as is the style for such disambiguations. You are right abuot there only being one engine out on Apollo 13 - got confused reading multiple sources. As for Apollo6 I do remember reading about it flying backwards so I found this at SP-4223 "Before This Decade Is Out..."


 * Every team had those kinds of experiences. The next mission [Apollo 6] was one that was really a solid test of the Saturn launch vehicle where we lost two engines on one side during powered flight during launch, and the Saturn's not supposed to fly. It's supposed to basically start spinning, lose control, but this Saturn didn't. And when you lose two engines one size, we go through it, we use a term "chi freeze" which means we actually hold the attitude we're in. Well, this kept the booster going essentially straight up.


 * At the time that we now finish first-stage burn-out, the booster recognized it was too high and too slow, so now it takes all of the five engines in the next stage and starts driving back down towards the ground. Okay. Then the guidance realizes it's got the right velocity but the wrong altitude, so this thing keeps turning around on it.


 * This rocket that we're getting ready to launch people to the Moon on goes into orbit thrusting backwards. In the meantime, it's throwing all these wifferdils all over the plot boards, and the team, by all rights, they should have called an abort, but since the engines were running, they were just watching this thing keep going.


 * --enceladus 20:34, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Apollo abort modes
I created this page a couple of days ago and was wondering if people feel that this should be left as a separate page or integrated into the Saturn V page. Basically it just goes through the various modes that existed for aborting the mission during the launch phase--enceladus 02:07, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contradictory LEO Lift Capability
I don't seem to be able to find the definitive figure during my short lunch-hour here @ work, but there is some contradictory text in the article. First the text claims that the S-V had a LEO payload capacity of 118,000kg, then in the "Comparisons" section it lists the LEO capability at 127,000kg.

Could the 127,000kg figure be for the Skylab OWS weight? The SA-513 vehicle obviously threw that into orbit, but can you properly include that figure with the Apollo-configured Saturns when they are such different launch vehicles? Justinwigg 04:01, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * According to Apollo by the Numbers, on average the mass of the spacecraft for a lunar mission was 110,000kg plus the instrument unit of about 4500 kg we have a total weight of 114500 kg. Of course for the Apollo flights we have to remember that the rocket also launched the S-IVB into orbit with fuel on board for the TLI burn.


 * As for the Skylab mass, it seems to have had an orbital mass of about 75,000 kg. The problem is that on the internet, in books etc, you will come up with 20 different values for everything to do with mass of rockets and spacecrafts.


 * I've changed all the references to 118,000 kg for the moment just for some consistency. Evil Monkey &rarr; Talk 04:18, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * LEO payload is complicated. Some references give the Saturn V LEO payload as 285,000 lbs. However this is the combined mass of the partially fuelled S-IVB and Apollo vehicles. In fact the payload capacity of the Saturn V was uprated starting with SA-504 (Apollo 9), then again uprated starting with Apollo 15, due due to weight reduction and F-1 performance improvements. The maximum total LEO payload achieved was probably Apollo 15. It is payload in LEO, but it's not really all discretionary payload. IOW it's mass in orbit, not really payload in orbit. However Apollo 15 apparently put about 311,176 lbm, or 141,148 kg mass into LEO, which is pretty big. In theory if you partially fueled the S-IVB (no need for TLI fuel just for LEO), it could put a 305,000 lb (138,000 kg) useful payload into LEO. I've seen statements the S-IVB wasn't structually capable of that, but certainly the reinforcement needed would be minor. However 118,000 kg figure is probably an OK average number. Joema 23:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Reduce passive voice
I hope nobody's psyche is warped by the past tense I applied to the sequence. It seemed strange to me to describe something that hasn't happened for 30 years in present tense. (Yes, I know that's practice on Current events and there's a fancy name for present tense refering to things of the past, but still... 30 years ago and it wasn't written shortly after the fact.) -- ke4roh 23:10, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * This article is choc full of passive voice. Some of it is ok, as it would be awkward to use active voice everywhere (since we are talking about an inanimate object, after all), but a lot of it is unnecessary.  I've already made a dozen or so changes. --Doradus 21:19, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Rocket and Rhea (my previous move/disamb. changes)
Sorry about the Saturn V disamb/move changes, Evil Monkey. Last thing I want to do is p*** off a bunch of rocket scientists! I should have posted here in discussion before moving on that. Lesson learned. I had been creating entries for some of the other Saturn moons and this was the first case where the designation name was already in use. Was just going for some consistency but I agree with your comment about there being little chance for confusion in this case. However I would submit that this is worth considering in the future since the Rhea is perhaps as significant as the rocket. -fj&#8756;Talk 20:53, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree that Rhea is as notable as the rocket but how many people are actually going to go to Saturn V expecting to see an article about the Moon? Evil Monkey&#8756;Hello 00:37, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

References to this article
FYI, I found some of the text of this article used (with attribution) here. --Doradus 12:38, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Height.
THere seems to be disagreement over height in feet. More sources (3/5) say 363ft, but many say 364. Comments? Rich  Farmbrough 00:19, 4 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If that's the case, it's obvious enough to me that 363 ft would be the accurate, original measurement. That converts to 111 m, to the nearest m.  Convering the conversion back, you end up at 364 ft instead.  I'd say redo it, listing 363 ft (111 m) with the original first.  Gene Nygaard 02:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The 'Saturn V News Reference' has an addendum stating that 'additional refinement of data has indicated that the overall height of the Saturn V should be 363 feet, not 364 as stated in the body of the publication'. Coming direct from NASA and the main Apollo contractors I'd guess that's a fairly definitive source. MarkGrant

Revisions on Saturn V size/thrust/payload
I made several changes in the "comparisons" section to correct inaccurate statements about the Saturn V. There's a lot of wrong information floating around about the space shuttle liftoff thrust, which affects Saturn V comparisons. This stems from inconsistent descriptions of SRB liftoff thrust. Often this is stated as 3.3 million lbs/each, however this is vacuum thrust. The key number is sea-level liftoff thrust, which is about 2.8 million lbs. Sometimes you'll see an even lower number, which is average thrust.

It's actually difficult to compare shuttle thrust to Saturn V thrust. Excluding altitude variations, the Saturn V engines were not throttleable -- they produce the same thrust from liftoff to shutdown. By comparison the shuttle SRB thrust (which produce over 80% of the liftoff thrust) is constantly varying. Do you compare peak to peak, average to average, or liftoff to liftoff? Do you compare sea level or vacuum thrust? In general most comparisons are for instantaneous sea level liftoff thrust, so that is about (2.8 million lbs * 2) + (393,000 * 3) = 6.779 million lbs, for SRB plus SSME 104% liftoff thrust. For the Saturn V, it's 1.5298 million lbs * 5 = 7.649 million lbs.

Some of the other comparisons were to rockets which have never flown, so I clarified this.

Let me know if any questions or concerns. Joema 21:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The numbers on the acceleration of the first stage do not seem to be correct. According to the article, the final velocity of the first stage was 5352 miles per hour. Yet it only reached an altitude of 42 miles and downrange 58 miles. Given the final speed of the first stage, it should have gone a lot further, perhaps 65 miles altitude and 90 miles downrange. Perhaps the 42 mile altitude should be attributed to the launching of a different rocket. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.231.203.92 (talk) 22:54, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The numbers are correct. They are from the actual Flight Evaluation Report. You may be confusing velocity/altitude/downrange distance at engine cutoff, vs the peak altitude and downrange achieved by the coasting stage after being jettisoned. Note the numbers in the article are statute miles unless otherwise stated, not the nautical miles normally used internally by NASA. Joema (talk) 10:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

N1 info
The extensive N1 info in the "comparisons" section is good, but too much detail and history for purposes of simple comparison. The developmental history and details on launch failures should probably be moved to the N1 article. Joema 02:58, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Seismic effect of the saturn V
I've heard that earthquake detectors could detect a Sat V launch from 1000 miles away. Can this be confirmed or denied? Linguofreak 03:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Certainly sounds plausible; they literally were a bomb (well, not literally, but you know), and 7.7 million lbs of thrust is no small deal :). Plus they stabbed the third stage into the Moon for seismic testing by the moonwalking astronauts, but I don't think the range was 1000 miles between them and the LM landing site, but it may well be different of Earth due to the atmosphere, wind, acoustical echoing, etc., etc. Unfortunately we'd need a reference though. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 16:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Ambiguities
"... a payload capacity of 118,00 kg to LEO"

Do you mean 11,800 kg, 118,000 kg, 118 kg (surely not) or what?


 * I mean 118,000 kg, mistyped, corrected it.

This article contains a link to TLI, which is a redirect to Transport Layer Interface; I doubt this is correct, but I don't know what TLI is in this context, so someone else will have to fix it. &mdash; Lady Lysine Ikinsile 10:21, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * The "TLI" the Saturn V article refers to is "Trans-Lunar Injection", the Saturn V third stage (SIV-B) rocket firing that takes the Apollo spacecraft out of low earth orbit and sends it toward the moon.

I think it would be appropriate to mention Arthur Rudolph on this page, but I'm not sure how to work him in. Ideas? -- ke4roh 15:08, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Maybe you could just mention his name and title as part of Wernher von Braun's team that developed the Saturn V. Wernher von Braun is already mentioned at the beginning of the article. More detailed info about him is in the article bearing his name. Rusty 22:09, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I tried that on for size, though I didn't particularly want to detract from Von Braun. --  ke4roh 23:10, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes of course it's OK to mention Rudolph. He was the program manager for the Saturn V, ultimately reponsible for the entire program. Rudolph directed the Saturn V program, not Von Braun (who was Rudolph's boss and involved in many things besides Saturn). Joema 00:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

At the beginning of the technology section, it says the Saturn V is "over 363 feet (110.6 m) high." However, in the same paragraph it says "It gives a good idea of the scale of Saturn V to note that, at 364 feet, it is just one foot shorter than St Paul's Cathedral in London." Is it 363 feet or 364? Either way, it would be more logical to have the correct number both times. Also, "it gives a good idea of the scale"... that's oddly written and isn't really NPOV. I shall change it.


 * 363 (from the Saturn V News Reference), see the discussion above. Mark Grant 17:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Photo caption in error?
The photo of the Saturn V ascending past the U.S. flag may contain an error in the caption. The photo shows a shock wave around the Saturn V, and says that this happens at MaxQ when the rocket is 1 min, 20 seconds into the flight. However, in the photo the Saturn V seems very close to the ground -- it can't be more than about 10 seconds into the flight. I suspect the shock wave is from the rocket breaking the sound barrier. Could someone look into this and correct the impression that the photo shows the rocket 80 seconds after liftoff? --Pmurph5 13:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The size of the flag makes this photo seem closer to the ground that it is. I believe it is an extreme zoom that also captures the flag.  Note that it takes about 12 seconds for the Saturn V to clear the tower.  When Max Q happens, the Saturn V is only about 44,000 feet off the ground, and it would certainly be possible to get a picture like this.  Here's a picture of the Shuttle at Max Q .  The Shuttle does this at about 35,000 feet. Cjosefy 15:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Cjosefy, that's not the Shuttle at Max-Q. That's in fact the moment of achieving Mach 1 (Mach 1 and Max-Q are not to be confused). You can see a subtle vapor disk intersecting the stack in addition to more prominent condensation sticking to various parts of the stack. That disc is the effect of the mach shock wave. Max-Q occurs sometime (several to several tens of seconds) after Mach 1, depending on various factors such as acceleration and flight profile. This subtle Mach 1 disc is very short-lived, less than a second when viewed in footage and is hard to catch in still photography. The other, more prominent condensation sticks around for much longer, before and after Mach 1. The Saturn V shot doesn't exactly show a shock wave either as much as this "ordinary" condensation cloud resulting from a drop in pressure. From the footage of Apollo 11, this condensation cloud did seem to form some time after T+1 min, after the vehicle flew through a cloud deck. So the image is very likely taken a while after liftoff, but very unlikely at Max-Q. The Max-Q passage occurs somewhat higher up where the engine exhaust spreads out more due to lower atmospheric pressure. This image shows the engine exhaust is narrowly collimated, the vehicle is probably less than 5 miles in altitude. To resume, the image shows neither supersonic passage nor Max-Q. I'd suggest changing the caption in order to avoid confusion. I could go on even further saying that particular image looks suspiciously like a double exposure -- a flag shot and a launch shot, but I'll stop for now. Ugo 11:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Double exposure - with NASA it is possible (for example this launch shot of Apollo 8). Then again, telephoto lens can do fun things like this Apollo 7 launch photo taken from a C-135 aircraft, flying at more than 35,000 feet. A quick browse of the newsgroups finds some people claiming that it is a composite, based on how it would be very hard to get the flag AND Saturn V in shot together at the height the rocket would have been by the time it forms the condensation cloud. Evil Monkey - Hello 20:31, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

A large rocket retired
The largest rocket is retired. Which is the largest active rocket? Jer10 95 06:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * That's a complicated question. "Largest" can mean tallest, heaviest, or (more loosely) greater payload or most powerful (in takeoff thrust). They can further be classified as manned or unmanned. If by "largest" you mean heaviest or most powerful ACTIVE booster, it's probably the U.S. Space shuttle, at 4.47 million lbs (2.029 million kg), and liftoff thrust of about 6.76 million lbs force (30.1 MN). From a height standpoint the Ariane 5 is about 1.5 feet taller. The shuttle has I think the largest payload to Low Earth orbit or current ACTIVE boosters at about 50,000 lbs (22,679 kg). The Ariane 5's LEO capacity is about 35,000 lbs (16,000 kg). The Ariane 5 may have a greater payload capacity to Geosynchronous orbit, as the shuttle is limited by the Inertial Upper Stage payload capacity and weight. However I think the Delta IV rocket Heavy has slightly greater payload capacity to Geostationary transfer orbit than the Ariane 5 ECA, at 10,843 kg vs 10,500 kg. From a launch mass standpoint, I think the Ariene 5 and Delta IV Heavy are about the same at 1.6 million lbs 737,000 kg.


 * Yet another viewpoint is although the shuttle is active, it's no longer used for launching satellite payloads (just ISS visits and one Hubble mission), so by that definition it's not active as a satellite-launching vehicle. Just an example of how there are many ways to view this. Here is one chart, but note it includes old (non-active) and current boosters: . I'm sure someone else can comment with better details. Joema 15:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Although the Shuttle is the largest manned booster, the U.S. Air Force's Titan IV-Centaur and the Russian Proton rockets are the largest unmanned rockets, although the former was retired in favor of the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets, whose "heavy" configuration (which looks like the Titan IV rocket) would be able to lift as much as the Titan IV would carry. Even with the Titan IV, Atlas V, and Delta IV, the Ares V will eventually take the title away in 2017. Rwboa22 23:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The tallest active rocket is the Delta IV, with heights ranging from 62m to 77m depending on fairing and upper stage used. --IanOsgood (talk) 16:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Caption in Max Q article
While leaving editing this to those with more knowledge of the subject than me, I would point out that the photo caption on the same picture as the one shown here claims to show the Saturn V at Max Q, in the article Max Q. So any work to change the caption to another cause will have repercussions there. Britmax 12:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed, that should be changed as well. Strictly speaking, Max-Q doesn't have anything in common with "shock waves" or condensation clouds as is often portrayed. As the article says, it's merely the point where dynamic pressure of the airflow is the greatest. A shock wave is created the minute the vehicle passes Mach 1 and persists the whole time, but it's invisible. Only a slight vapor disc (such as the above Shuttle image) can sometimes be visible immediately near Mach 1 as a consequence of the shock wave. It by no means outlines the shock which is roughly conical. Condensation on the other hand occurs where local air flow goes through rapid pressure changes that favor condensation of water droplets. None of the two phenomena can be attributed to Max-Q alone. For all practical purposes, nothing visible happens at Max-Q and that Saturn V image should be removed from the article as well. The Space Shuttle image in the above section could be used for an illustration on supersonic transition for example, but that's about it. Ugo 14:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if I am the person who wrote the caption, or at least didn't check someone's fact when they added it as being Max-Q but apologise anyway. I have found that the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal here (image KSC-69PC-397, near the bottom of the section) caption the image as

Apollo 11 after pitchover. Note the condensation cloud that has formed in air expanding aft of the first-stage/second-stage transition
 * Evil Monkey - Hello 20:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Template:Saturn V infobox at WP:TFD
Template:Saturn V infobox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. GW_Simulations |User Page 20:13, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Black and White Patterns


The photo montage makes it obvious that the Saturns had different black and white patterns on the stage two and three adapter sections. Did the patterns mean anything? My first thought was that they were codes to uniquely identify particular rockets, but some (Apollo 6 and 10) appear identical. Perhaps they are unique but not from the camera's perspective? Epiphoney 15:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi.  I don't have a reference to back this up, but I have always understood that the black marks were to allow cameras on the ground to monitor roll of the rocket.   Pitch and yaw would be relatively easy to detect because of the shape of the rocket, but if it were 100% white, roll would be much harder to detect from the ground. -- MarkPos( User Page 19:06, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * that certainly sounds plausible. it would be a great addition to the article if a reliable source for it can be found. Anastrophe 05:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've found a website (http://www.apollosaturn.com/markings/mguide.htm) which seems to confirm what I wrote above, but I'm not sure if this would be regarded as "reliable" enough to add something about the black and white patterning to the article. -- MarkPos( User Page 21:42, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi   I know from old photos that it goes back at least to the captured V2's that were fired from White Sands post-WWII.  I think I've even seen it on German photos of tests of the A4 (their designation for the V2).  I'll keep an eye out for early photo references, but I don't know about an explanation in text.  Walter Dornberger's 1954 book on the V2 might be the place to look. Wwheaton 22:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've looked at the book ("V-2", Walter Dornberger, [translated from the German by J. Cleugn & G. Halliday] Viking Press, 1954), and it has several photos with basically the same black and white pattern on A4 rockets, the earliest date being October 1943. On p. 6, describing the first successful flight of an A4, on October 3, 1942 (just fifteen years and one day before Sputnik 1!), he describes "the perfect body of the rocket, lacquered black and white", so there seems no doubt the practice goes back earlier.  I find nothing on the rationale, but I believe each intersection point of the black and white corners defined a clear point that could be measured accurately on photographic records, and thus provided a basis for determination of the position and orientation of the rocket -- not just the roll -- during the early parts of the flight. Wwheaton 20:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It makes sense that the patterns allow people on the ground to determine the rocket's orientation, but that doesn't explain why the patterns on the stage 2-3 adapters are different. Epiphoney (talk) 15:11, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You have made a logic error in assuming that all these pictures were taken from the same camera angle; they were not. You are looking at the same pattern from different angles.  If you follow the link above provided by MarkPos (thanks), you will find a drawing of what this pattern looks like from the top.  The half black-half white side pointed at the camera on Apollo 6 and 10 is Position I on the side where the crew hatch is, and the Launch Umbilical tower is to the right of the vehicle at Position II.


 * However, your question made me take a closer look and I found an error in the montage. The picture of Apollo 8 is backwards.  Unfortunately, the USA letters on the first stage and the words "United States" on the second stage don't happen to be clear enough to be legible.  If you look closely you'll see it's the mirror image of Apollo 9, 11, and 16.  My guess is that the negative was printed backwards (that sometimes happened before the days of digital photography).  I happen to have Paint Shop Pro, the same tool that was used to create this montage, so I might be able to fix it to help reduce confusion about how the vehicles were painted. JustinTime55 (talk) 15:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

S-IVB sequence
In this section, at one point it says that TLI came after about 2-1/2 orbits, in another it says 2-1/2 hours. An orbit takes about 90 minutes. If my memory is correct, 2-1/2 hours is the correct figure, but could someone confirm that and correct it? Bubba73 (talk), 22:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Modified statistics
I modified the statistics listed in the "Fact sheet" box. First, the original box had "+ INT-21", apparently counting the Skylab vehicle as a related but separate launch vehicle. I think it makes more sense just to count the INT-21 as a one-time variant of the Saturn-V-- I note that the text of the article seems to do so, including the nice photomontage of Saturn-V launches at the end of the article. Second, I added the Apollo-6 launch into the "success" statistics. I expect that this will be a bit controversial, but as an orbital launch vehicle, this has to be counted as a successful launch, since the computer in fact did compensate for the two engines shut down of the S-II, and successfully put the Apollo CSM in orbit. I added a "see note" tag to the number, and kept the "1 partial failure" listing, adding a link to Apollo 6 in parentheses afterwards, so readers curious about what the designation "partial failure" means can go read the detailed article. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 18:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a question of payload of Saturn-V for LEO. If we consider Saturn-V as a two-stage rocket, then there is Skylab, which was about 74,783 kg (from http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/QuickLooks/skylabQL.html ). If we consider Saturn-V as a three-stage rocket, then there is Apollo stack, about 52,739 kg (from http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-19_Ground_Ignition_Weights.htm ), and that was after TLI, not on LEO. But the mass on LEO consisted not only from actual payload, but also from the rocket partially-spent stage; in other words, Saturn-V couldn't carry more than Skylab weight to LEO without the redesign of the upper stage. (Avmich (talk) 23:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC))


 * Re payload, there are various ways to define this. The NASA-stated Saturn V LEO payload is 280,000 lbs (127,000 kg): . This probably includes the total orbital mass of a partially-fueled SIVB 3rd stage, which is a functional payload. The actual functional payload in LEO varied with each Saturn mission. The largest was Apollo 17, at 139,750 kg in LEO. See |all|all&Ntx=mode%20matchall|mode%20matchall|mode%20matchall&Ntt=Saturn%2BFlight%2BEvaluation%2BReport%7CSaturn%2B5%2Blaunch%2Bvehicle%2Bflight%2Bevaluation%2Breport%7Cflight%2Bevaluation%2Breport%2Bapollo%2B17%2Bmission


 * The LEO orbital payload of the Saturn V which launched Skylab was 147,363 kg. Of this about 36,500 kg was the non-functional dry mass of the SII 2nd stage. Total orbital mass of the Skylab workshop was about 88,474 kg.


 * Various other sources state the Saturn V LEO payload as 118,000 kg . So there are various ways to define payload: total, functional, discretionary, etc. The Saturn V could (and did) launch nearly 140,000 kg of functional, useful payload to LEO. It's true this wasn't all discretionary payload, and without modifications it couldn't have launched a 140,000 unitary satellite. However the 118,000 - 139,750 kg numbers represent functional, useful LEO payload, so the using the 118,000 kg number seems appropriate. Joema (talk) 14:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The Saturn V is a three-stage rocket. The two-stage version that launched Skylab was a Saturn INT-21. The payload statistics for the Saturn V shouldn't represent those of the Saturn INT-21. That may be a bit confusing to those who aren't knowledgeable about rockets or the space program. -MBK004 23:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The SA-513 vehicle which launched Skylab was a two-stage Saturn V. NASA/Marshall (who designed the vehicle) refered to it that way in the official Flight Evaluation Report: . It's true some trade studies used the term INT-21 when discussing several Saturn V variants. That usage had a specfic reason: when discussing several variants in a single technical document, it's beneficial to assign each a unique identifier. That situation doesn't exist in a general-usage encyclopedia. Referring to SA-513 as a two-stage Saturn V seems appropriate, as that's how NASA/Marshall described it. The article uses payload statistics for the three-stage vehicle, except where otherwise specified. Joema (talk) 19:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Partial Failures
Apollo 13 was a partial failure of the Saturn V, because engine 5 on the S-II stage shut down early. By the way, I am Nat682 who is not logged in. 24.19.132.231 (talk) 14:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Well yeah, but it didn't affect the planned lunar landing. Had the service module been okay, the landing would have been fine, and Jim Lovell and Fred Haise would have been the fifth and sixth people to walk on the Moon. But the Apollo stack did reach orbit, so I'm not sure whether we should consider it a partial failure, IMHO. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 16:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The term "partial failure" is used when talking about a rocket failure, where the payload is still delivered to the required orbit, but the rocket malfunctioned at some point. So, Apollo 13 was by all means a partial failure of the Saturn V. Same goes for Apollo 6.Themanwithoutapast (talk) 11:36, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 17:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Shuttle SRBs/SSMEs carry larger payload to orbit?
I was just thinking: the Space Shuttle orbiter has a gross lift-off mass of 109,000 kg. The Saturn V took a 118,000 kg payload. Granted, that's nine tonnes more, but it's not far off the Saturn V. Obviously the Shuttle is far shorter, though. Just a thought. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 16:33, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm... Seems Columbia on STS-107 (her final flight) was over 119,000 kg at lift-off - the Space Shuttle launch vehicle comprising the SRBs/ET/SSMEs carrying a heavier payload to orbit than the Saturn V. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 20:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Nope, I was wrong. I was comparing the total weight of the orbiter (and I assume now that that must included the mated SRBs and ET, though it doesn't affect this) to the payload weight of the Saturn V, when I should have been comparing the total weight of the orbiter to the total weight of the Saturn V, not payload weight; in which case, the 3,000 tonne Saturn V by far surpasses the 119 tonne shuttle. --J (talk - contribs) 16:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Effect on the ionospehere
Does the effect of the SaturnV launch on the ionosphere deserve mention? c.f. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/187/4174/343 16:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 16:18, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Saturn V -- a doctored image?
The beautiful image of the Saturn V against a sunset/sunrise with a nearly full moon is impossible. The moon is illuminated by the sun, so a full moon must appear 180 degrees away from a setting or rising sun. Shouldn't we just label the image a 'composite'? Wrstark (talk) 01:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)wrstark
 * You're right, according to the image page:

"Note: The official NASA description of the photograph is incorrect, and the image is a composite with the full moon in the background added later. On the morning of November 9, 1967 the moon was at first quarter. The flame trench at Pad 39A was oriented along the north-south axis and the rocket was south of the Launch Umbilical Tower. This means this photograph was taken facing southwest, so for the lighting to be correct it had to have been taken at sunset, not sunrise, unless the original image has been "flipped" horizontally for the sake of artistic composition."


 * However, I don't think we should change the label as people could think it was literally a fully-CG composite, whereas the current label is correct; it does show (and is formed from) an image of Apollo 4 on the pad. That's just my opinion though. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 16:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

POV in comparisons
There are alot of useless "ifs", for example the russian Energia would have had a greater mass to LEO if more funding had been provided. We need to remove these as the are not wikipedia standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.169.140.236 (talk) 15:07, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep, totally. I've removed the N-1 reference, as it never succeeded, so it doesn't matter in this section of the article. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 16:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

"Hypothetical future versions of the Soviet Energia would have been significantly more powerful than the Saturn V, delivering 46 MN of thrust and able to deliver up to 175 metric tonnes to LEO in the "Vulkan" configuration. " I believe this should be removed because its hypothetical, any objections? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.195.101.24 (talk) 08:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I strongly recommend leaving that in. It was added to clarify the common misconception that Energia as launched was much powerful than the Saturn V. This error happens when people confuse future uprated Energia configurations with the "as flown" configuration. Likewise the Saturn V had planned more powerful versions which never flew. The paragraph is intended to clarify and give a balanced perspective of this. Joema (talk) 14:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Sat V first stage
Please help me, my memory of the Saturn V first stage is that it was a S-1B rather than a S-1C as in the article. The letter designation was for the contractor who built the stage. Boeing built the first stage for the Sat V and Chrysler built the first stage for the Sat 1B. The stage designation letters were backward from what would be a logical progression in that the S-1C was an earlier design than the Sat V S-1B.

I have no references other than my memory. Does anyone else recall this? Am I correct?

VR

Cuq4wa (talk) 23:55, 2 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Nope. The letter at the end of the stage designation is in fact meant to show progression of later-developed stages.  Compare the S-IVB, built by Douglas.  http://www.apollosaturn.com/s5news/p21-17.htm (Saturn V News Reference) --71.163.200.9 (talk) 03:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Payload to LEO
Wow who removed it, it needs to be placed back. --Craigboy (talk) 05:59, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Restored. Joema (talk) 14:27, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Present Day
When listing the the amount something costs today, list the year, never put down "present day".--Craigboy (talk) 13:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Use of italics in Apollo, Gemini, Vostok, Voskhod and Soyuz missions
According to Manual of Style (text formatting), italics are used for "named vehicles (trains and locomotives; ships; ship classes)". The only time US spacecraft have been named, were: I understand the Soviets/Russians didn't assign call signs to their vehicles, rather to individual cosmonauts.
 * the six Mercury flights (which each astronaut named);
 * on Apollo, when the CSM and LM were both flown manned;
 * the Space Shuttles.

The numbered names of Gemini and Apollo flights refer to the missions, not the names of the spacecraft. Thus, Freedom 7 and Challenger are appropriate, while Apollo 13 isn't (unless you happen to be referring to the movie.) Apollo 11 wasn't a ship name, though Columbia and Eagle were. Gus Grissom even named his Gemini 3 capsule Molly Brown, though that was more of an inside joke than an official name. JustinTime55 (talk) 19:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Speed of S1C
I have corrected the line : "The Saturn V quickly accelerated, reaching 1600 ft/s at over 1 mi in altitude." At 1 mile, the speed is about 120 m/s (400 ft/s and not 400 m/s), about 35s after lift-off. You can verify with this video of liftoff (with altitude and speed) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Yd-GxJ_QM&p=C12012F54F0D9B83&playnext=1&index=33 --FlyAkwa (talk) 15:36, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Nautical vs statute miles
We need to be more careful about the nmi/mi distinction. For example, "to get the rocket through the first 36 miles (61 km) of ascent" has to be nmi, but the conversion to km is done improperly. The later "an altitude of about 42 miles (68 km), was downrange about 58 miles (93 km)" must be statute miles and has been converted correctly, but it's odd to mix the two kinds of miles in one paragraph without saying which we're talking about. It also seems odd to me that we use statute miles at all, and if we do, I think we should say so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.212.112.22 (talk) 18:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I completely agree, anonymous user. NASA was consistently using nautical miles (never statute) for altitude and downrange distance throughout the space program, until they converted to metric units late in Apollo (not sure if it was Apollo 14 or 15, or?) We should reflect this practice and be using nautical miles, and the convert template should be used to do the conversions automatically and properly. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

There is also another more serious issue: no citations are given for the numbers in this section. We should try to find an authoritative source and verify the correct numbers. (I don't know if a YouTube video is a good (durable) source.) JustinTime55 (talk) 16:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Blueprints (missing page)
The page at Space.com pointed in ref. 11 (cite_note-MSFC-PLANS-10) is "404". There are a copy in the wayback machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080718060004/http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/saturn_five_000313.html

Original link: http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/saturn_five_000313.html

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#cite_note-MSFC-plans-10

--Cesarakg (talk) 22:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Old talk
Isn't there an error in the fact sheet? Did maiden flight occur on november 6th or 9th? See text of Apollo 4 article.
 * The launch occurred on November 9th. (The countdown, a multi-day process, started on the 6th.) If the Apollo 4 article said the 6th, that was an error which has also been fixed. JustinTime55 (talk) 17:31, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Saturn V configurations - pre-flight testing articles and efforts
Saturn V Vehicle Configuration.jpg looks informative for lots of information included here and in articles especially about the non-flight hardware. I would like to see more information about testing and preparations for flight, and this image would go well in that section. There are lots of images of tests&mdash;engine firings, rollouts, trucking parts around, and so forth. -- ke4roh (talk) 02:54, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

What parts are displayed at KSC?
A friend of mine tells me that the second and third stages at KSC are from SA-514, and indeed that is indicated here without references in the section on the KSC display. On the other hand, Wright says that it's S-IC-T, S-II from 514 and S-IVB-500F. I saw somewhere that Smithsonian researchers were surprised to find out about the third stage, but I didn't find any actual useful information about their surprise or what was learned. So what parts are really at KSC? -- ke4roh (talk) 21:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Altitude when first stage is finished
The article says it's 36 miles, but also says it's 42 miles. Which is it?

After that's corrected, how about converted miles to km properly? 5 mi = 8 km --Uncle Ed (talk) 04:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It's 200000 ft. I checked the flight manual and cited it directly.  I also applied a great many undefined undefined templates so the conversions would be standardized, but there are a good many more places to apply the template in the article. -- ke4roh (talk) 03:14, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The weakest link
This article's weakest link seems to be the history section. It really needs a rewrite; there's a lot of information mixed in together, seemingly on the mistaken assumption that von Braun expressly invented it for the lunar mission, which of course was not the case. I tried to make a stab by giving it a bit more logical structure, and by referring to the Saturn (rocket family) main article.

The history really seems to be better written there, so maybe the solution is to trim it here way back to just a summary. Also, just a bit more needs to be added to properly summarize how the Apollo program (and LOR selection) came about to give the Saturn V its mission. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:37, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The history section is worse than weak; it is way off base when it comes to the credits being given to von Braun's paperclip engineers. The technology did not "come from Germany" and did not "follow" from the V-2. The first U.S. liquid propellant rocket engine company, Reaction Motors, Inc., was incorporated in 1941, the 2nd, Aerojet, was incorporated in 1942--NOT after the war. None of the major early U.S. rocket engine manufacturers--Reaction Motors, Aerojet, and General Electric--copied the German engine design. None of them thought it was WORTH copying. Reaction Motors and Aerojet came up with their own engine designs without every having seen German engines and General Electric saw the V-2 engine and then decided to follow Reaction Motors designs instead. Rocketdyne tried to adapt the V-2 engine to the Navaho cruise missile booster only to give up on it and come up with a totally different tube-bundle design of their own, which turned into the engines for Atlas, Thor, and Jupiter. (NO, the Jupiter engine was NOT designed at Redstone arsenal by the Germans.) The Rocketdyne engines (not the German engine) was the predecessor of the engines for all the Saturns. This engine technology came from Navy (Viking and Vangauard) and Air Force (Navaho and Atlas) programs, not from Redstone Arsenal and the Army. The whole "out of Germany" fantasy on which this article is based is nonsense. Give the Marshall Spaceflight Center credit for managing the contracts for Saturn V development but drop this fantasy nonsense about the Saturn V being a "German" rocket. Get real!Magneticlifeform (talk) 07:22, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Magneticlifeform is correct. Deducing that the Saturn Rocketdyne configuration totally derives from the V-2 is analogous to deducing that the V-2 totally derives from Goddard's first rocket. Much extraneous effort went into reshaping crude Goddard ideas into a V-2. Goddard cannot gain total credit for the V-2's success. Analogously, much extraneous effort went into reshaping crude V-2 ideas into the Saturn Rocketdyne. V-2 scientists cannot gain total credit for the Saturn Rocketdyne's success.

Suppose the Saturn Rocketdyne had become an utter failure.... Would you have then blamed Goddard? V-2 scientists? Or the US? Answer: the US would have been blamed. Evidence: Apollo 13. Never did a single V-2 engineer ever publicly acknowledge either individual or team oversight with the original Saturn V design leading to mishaps associated with Apollo 13. The engineers failed to thoroughly redesign their own upgrades: no one ever ordered Beechcraft to switch to 65-volt thermostats when the command module's 28-volt DC bus was upgraded. If they had, we would not be discussing this today.

And let us never forget the tragedy associated with the Saturn IB's Apollo I (V-2 engineers deftly avoid responsibility because they are inexperienced with handling oxygen). Apparently, oxygen was not their only weakness.

Read on...

The origins of the Saturn V rocket begin in late 1957 to early 1958, when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) began studying what a new non-military space agency would entail, as well as what its role might be, and assigned several committees to review the concept. On January 12, 1958, NACA organized a "Special Committee on Space Technology", headed by Guyford Stever. It was a special steering committee that was formed with the mandate to coordinate various branches of the federal government, private companies and universities within the United States with NACA's objectives so as to harness their expertise for the sake of developing a space program.

In late March, 1958, a NACA report entitled "Suggestions for a Space Program" included recommendations to develop a 3-stage rocket for achieving spaceflight. It was to be fueled with hydrogen fluorine and achieve a thrust of 4450000 N.

"Suggestions for a Space Program" ideas were not impractical, as companies such as Reaction Motors and Aerojet had already begun design of rocket engines as early as the late 1930s, with help from the United States Army, intended for use on aircraft. Also, the V-2 rocket had already reached space more than 15 years earlier, on October 3, 1942, as had the United States WAC Corporal on May 22, 1946.

Both US programs that eventually would later lead to the construction of the SM-64 Navaho and the PGM-11 Redstone had already been initiated in those years immediately following World War II in response to the spacefaring V-2 rocket. Later programs leading to rockets such as the SM-65 Atlas, PGM-19 Jupiter, UGM-27 Polaris, PGM-17 Thor, Vanguard (rocket) and Viking (rocket) would follow in the late 1950s, concurrent with the formation of the "Stever Committee."

By the early 1950s all of the major branches of the US military were actively developing long-range missiles, most with the help of Germans from the V-2 project and based on its technology. These included the US Navy's Viking and US Army's Corporal, Jupiter and Redstone designs. The US Air Force's Atlas and Titan, however, used more technology developed in the US.

In-fighting between the various branches had been constant, with the United States Department of Defense (DoD) often called upon to decide which projects to fund for development. Things were supposed to be settled by the 26 November 1956 "Wilson Memorandum," which stripped the Army of offensive missiles with a range of 200 mi or greater, and forced their Jupiter missiles to be turned over to the Air Force. From that point on the Air Force would be the primary missile developer, especially for dual-use missiles that could also be used for space launchers.

Some time in late 1956 or early 1957 the Department of Defense released a requirement for a heavy-lift vehicle to orbit a new class of communications and other satellites. The requirements, drawn up by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), called for a vehicle capable of putting 9,000 to 18,000 kilograms into orbit, or accelerating 2,700 to 5,400 kg to escape velocity. In April 1957, Wernher von Braun directed Heinz-Hermann Koelle, chief of the Future Projects design branch, to study dedicated space launcher designs that could be built as quickly as possible. Koelle evaluated a variety of designs for missile-derived launchers that could place a maximum of about 1,400 kg in orbit, but might be expanded to as much as 4,500 kg with new high-energy upper stages. In any event, these upper stages would not be available until 1961 or 62 at the earliest, and the launchers would still not meet the DoD requirements for heavy loads.

In order to fill the need for loads of 10,000 kg or greater, the ABMA calculated that a booster (first stage) with a thrust of about 1500000 lbf thrust would be needed, far greater than any existing or planned missile. For this role they proposed using a number of existing missiles clustered together to produce a single larger booster; using existing designs they looked at concepts named "Super-Atlas," "Super-Titan," and "Super-Jupiter." Super-Jupiter received the most attention because it used hardware developed by ABMA; the Titan and Atlas were Air Force designs that were suffering from lengthy delays in development.

Two approaches to building the Super-Jupiter were considered. The first used multiple engines to reach the 1500000 lbf mark; the second used a single much larger engine. Both approaches had their own advantages and disadvantages. Building a smaller engine for clustered use would be a relatively low-risk path from existing systems, but required duplication of systems and made the possibility of one engine failure much higher (paradoxically, adding engines generally reduces reliability). A single larger engine would be more reliable in theory, and would offer higher performance because it eliminated duplication of "dead weight" like fuel plumbing and hydraulics for steering the engines. On the downside, an engine of this size had never been built before and development would be expensive and risky. The Air Force had recently expressed an interest in such an engine, which would develop into the famed F-1, but at the time they were aiming for 1000000 lbf and the engines would not be ready until the mid-1960s. The engine-cluster appeared to be the only way to meet the requirements on time and budget.

The Army team at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) under the direction of Wernher von Braun studied a number of designs that clustered existing missile airframes and optionally added new engines. The design series included the "Super-Titan," "Super-Atlas" and "Super-Jupiter." The latter quickly became their focus, as it consisted of technology developed at ABMA, while the Atlas and Titan were Air Force designs suffering from extended development problems. The Super-Jupiter design was based almost entirely on existing equipment, using a cluster of Redstone and Jupiter missiles to form a lower stage powered by a new engine, with an upper stage adapted from the Titan. Their proposal was much simpler and lower-risk than the Air Force proposal, which required the development of a new hydrogen-burning upper stage. Like the Air Force team, ABMA also outlined their vision of a manned lunar mission as Project Horizon, using fifteen of these rockets to build a large vehicle in Earth orbit.

The newly formed ARPA, who was put in charge of development of the launcher, sided with the ABMA design. Their only concern was that the new engines might be a risk, suggesting that more moderate upgrades of existing engines be used instead. ABMA quickly adapted the design to use eight engines developed from the Jupiter's S-3D as the H-1, as opposed to four of the proposed E-1 of the original design. ARPA was satisfied, and started funding development of both the booster at ABMA and the new H-1 engines at Rocketdyne. Contracts were tendered in October 1958 and work proceeded quickly; the first test-firing of the H-1 occurred in December and a mock-up of the booster had already been completed. Originally known as Super-Jupiter, the design became the Juno V during development, and on February 3 an ARPA memorandum officially renamed the project Saturn.

In December 1957, ABMA delivered Proposal: A National Integrated Missile and Space Vehicle Development Program to the DoD, detailing their clustered approach. They proposed a booster consisting of a Jupiter missile airframe surrounded by eight Redstones acting as tankage, a thrust plate at the bottom, and four Rocketdyne E-1 engines of 360 to 380000 lbf. The ABMA team also left the design open to future expansion with a single 1500000 lbf engine, which would require relatively minor changes to the design. The upper stage was the lengthened Titan, with the Centaur on top. The result was a very tall and skinny rocket, quite different from the Saturn that eventually emerged.

The Air Force had gained valuable experience working with liquid hydrogen on the Lockheed CL-400 Suntan spy plane project and felt confident in their ability to use this volatile fuel for rockets. They had already accepted Krafft Ehricke's arguments that hydrogen was the only practical fuel for upper stages, and started the Centaur project based on the strength of these arguments. Titan C was a hydrogen-burning intermediate stage that would normally sit between the Titan lower and Centaur upper, or could be used without the Centaur for low-Earth orbit missiles like Dyna-Soar. However, as hydrogen is much less dense than "traditional" fuels then in use, essentially kerosene, the upper stage would have to be fairly large in order to hold enough fuel. As the Atlas and Titan were both built at 120" diameters it would make sense to build Titan C at this diameter as well, but this would result in an unwieldy tall and skinny rocket with dubious strength and stability. Instead, Titan C proposed building the new stage at a larger 160" diameter, meaning it would be an entirely new rocket.

In comparison, the Super-Juno design was based on off-the-shelf components, with the exception of the E-1 engines. Although it too relied on the Centaur for high-altitude missions, the rocket was usable for low-Earth orbit without Centaur, which offered some flexibility in case Centaur ran into problems. ARPA agreed that the Juno proposal was more likely to meet the timeframes required, although they felt that there was no strong reason to use the E-1, and recommended a lower-risk approach here as well. ABMA responded with a new design, the Juno V (as a continuation of the Juno I and Juno II series of rockets, while Juno III and IV were unbuilt Atlas- and Titan-derived concepts), which replaced the four E-1 engines with eight H-1s.

NASA was established by law on July 29, 1958. One day later, the 50th Redstone rocket was successfully launched from Johnston Atoll in the south Pacific as part of Operation Hardtack I. Two years later, NASA opened the Marshall Space Flight Center at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, and the ABMA development team led by von Braun was transferred to NASA. Soon, the newly-formed NASA would express their interest in the Saturn design as part of their long-term strategy. Not over 60 days prior to NASA's formation, on 9 June 1959, Herb York, Director of Department of Defense Research and Engineering, had announced his intentions to terminate the Saturn program. York felt that the DoD should not be funding a booster whose only concrete role was to support a civilian space program. A meeting was arrange to "save" the program, which resulted in the Saturn program, and all of ABMA with it, being transferred to NASA.

In a face-to-face meeting with Herb York at the Pentagon, von Braun made it clear he would go to NASA only if development of the Saturn was allowed to continue. Presiding from July 1960 to February 1970, von Braun became the center's first Director.

In 1959, the Saturn Vehicle Evaluation Committee assembled to recommend specific directions that NASA could take with the Saturn program. The committee was chaired by a long-time NASA engineer, Abe Silverstein, with the expressed intent of selecting upper stages for the Saturn after a disagreement broke out between the Air Force and Army over its development. The Saturn proposal had always included such a stage for orbital insertion, the Centaur, a hydrogen-burning stage derived from the Atlas ICBM.

For the intermediate stages the designers has somewhat more flexibility. The Silverstein Committee members outlined a number of possible solutions grouped into different classes, including the low-risk solution von Braun was developing with existing ICBM airframes, as well as versions using entirely new upper stages developed to take full advantage of the booster stage. The class "A" designs were the low-risk solutions; von Braun's current design became the A-1, consisting of the Jupiter/Redstone clustered lower stage, the Titan I as the intermediate, and the Centaur upper. The A-2 replaced the intermediate with another cluster made up from Thor missiles. The single B-1 design replaced the intermediate with an all-new 220" LOX/RP-1 design using four of the H-1 engines that the lower stage also used, along with a new four-engine third stage derived from Centaur but in a 220" diameter. The C designs used hydrogen-burning uppers only; C-1 would consist of the existing Saturn booster, a new Douglas Aircraft 220" S-IV stage powered by four upgraded versions of the Centaur engines with 15000 lbf to 20000 lbf thrust per engine, and a modified Centaur using the same engines as a third stage. The C-1 would become the C-2 upon insertion of a new S-III stage with two new 150000 lbf to 200000 lbf thrust engines, keeping the S-IV and Centaur on top. The C-3 was a similar adaptation, inserting the S-II stage with four of the same 150-200,000 lbf thrust engines, keeping the S-III and S-IV stages of the C-2, but eliminating the Centaur.

Examining the results strongly suggested that the C models were the only ones worth proceeding with, as they offered much higher performance than any other combination and offered great flexibility by allowing the stages to be mixed-and-matched for any particular launch need. Additionally, the Titan-derived intermediate had little growth potential, its weight already being near the maximum the Saturn booster could lift. If more performance was called for in the future, a new middle stage would be needed anyway. The same analysis eliminated the 160" stage; designed for the smaller Titan, the Saturn booster would be wasting much of its potential performance lifting this lighter load.

Thus the decision came down not to performance, which was clearly settled, but development risk. The Saturn had always been designed to be as low-risk as possible, the only really new components being a minor upgrade to the engine for the lower stage and the Centaur as the upper. Developing entirely new hydrogen-burning stages for the entire "stack" would increase the risk that a failure of any one of the components could disrupt the entire program. But as the Committee members noted: "If these propellants are to be accepted for the difficult top-stage applications, there seems to be no valid engineering reasons for not accepting the use of high-energy propellants for the less difficult application to intermediate stages." von Braun was won over; development of the current design would continue as a back-up, but the future of the Saturn was based on hydrogen and was tailored solely to NASA's requirements.

On the last day of 1959, Keith Glennan, Administrator of NASA, approved the Silverstein recommendations. Chances of meeting the schedule improved with two Eisenhower administration decisions in January 1960. The Saturn project received a DX rating, which designated a program of highest national priority, which gave program managers privileged status in securing scarce materials. More important, the administration agreed to NASA's request for additional funds. The Saturn FY 1961 budget was increased from $140 million to $230 million. On 15 March 1960 President Eisenhower officially announced the transfer of the Army's Development Operations Division to NASA. The total development cost of $850 million during the years 1958-1963 covered 30 research and development flights, some carrying manned and unmanned space payloads. Specific uses were forecast for each of the military services, including navigation satellites for the Navy; reconnaissance, communications, and meteorological satellites for the Army and Air Force; support for Air Force manned missions; and surface-to-surface logistics supply for the Army at distances up to 6400 km.

Ironically, the original Saturn C vehicles imagined in the Silverstein Committee report were never built. As soon as the Saturn became a NASA-tuned design of high performance, the DoD became less interested in it for their own needs. Development of the Titan continued for these roles, and as a result the flexibility offered by the variety of Saturn C-model intermediate stages simply wasn't needed, and were eventually abandoned. The only tiny portion of the original Saturn C design that eventually would survive was the S-IV, the smallest of the new upper stages. It was originally intended that this would be equipped with four upgraded Centaur engines, but to further lower risk it was decided to used the existing engines and increase their number from four to six. A new engine, the famed J-2, was already in the pipeline that could replace these anyway. Even the original S-IV design, the 220" with six engines, was used only for a short period until a larger diameter 260" version was created for the Saturn Block II models, and then finally replaced with the J-2 powered S-IVB of the Saturn IB. Centaur was never used on Saturn.

Launches in the early 1960s would focus on low-Earth orbit using existing ICBM's as launchers, technology development for the lunar program would be based on Saturn, and the actual "direct assent" lunar mission would use the massive Nova rocket, then under design at NASA. The challenge that President John F. Kennedy put to NASA in May 1961 to put an astronaut on the Moon by the end of the decade put a sudden new urgency on the Saturn program. That year saw a flurry of activity as different means of reaching the Moon were evaluated.

Both the Nova and Saturn rockets were evaluated for the mission, which shared a similar design and could share some parts. However, it was judged that the Saturn would be easier to get into production, since many of the components were designed to be air-transportable. Nova would require new factories for all the major stages, and there were serious concerns that they could not be completed in time. Saturn required only one new factory, for the largest of the proposed lower stages, and was selected primarily for that reason.

Upon abandoning the low-risk class "A" designs, von Braun's preference was for two Saturn C-3's conducting an Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR). The debate between various approaches came to a head in 1961. Instead of the C-3 and either direct ascent or earth orbit rendezvous, the working group instead selected the C-5 and Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR). After studying what would be required to modify either booster to the new requirement of about 200,000 lb in low earth orbit (LEO), it seemed that the Saturn C-5 rather than the C-3 would be the best solution. The C-2 model would also be built as a testbed system, launching subassemblies into orbit for flight testing before the C-5 would be ready. Further, LOR had a mass requirement about mid-way between the Saturn C-3 and Nova 8L.

The Saturn C-5, (later given the name Saturn V), the most powerful of the Silverstein Committee's configurations, was selected as the most suitable design. At the time the mission mode had not been selected, so they chose the most powerful booster design in order to ensure that there would be ample power. This proved to be a wise decision; although the Lunar orbit rendezvous was eventually selected and reduced the launch weight requirements, as the weight of the spacecraft crept upwards the extra launch capability of the C-5 proved very useful.

At this point, however, all three stages existed only on paper, and it was realized that it was very likely that the actual lunar spacecraft would be developed and ready for testing long before the booster. NASA therefore decided to also continue development of the C-1 (later Saturn I) as a test vehicle, since its lower stage was based on existing technology (Redstone and Jupiter tankage) and its upper stage was already in development. This would provide valuable testing for the S-IV as well as a launch platform for capsules and other components in low earth orbit.

Kelvin Case (talk) 04:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Far too many liberties have been taken in this long-winded treatise to be accepting all these claims at face value. There were less than 200 German scientists and engineers at Huntsville, not 700. Aerojet and Reaction Motors did NOT exist in the 1930s. Reaction Motors came up with their own motor designs and Aerojet was formed on the basis of Caltech rocket developments, NOT German. The personal interpretations put on the history of rocketry here are unrealistic and insignificant trivia is being inflated to exaggerated importance. Too much.Magneticlifeform (talk) 07:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Missing blueprints fringe theory
I removed the last paragraph from the Technology section on two grounds:


 * A popular urban myth has [sic] the blueprints for the Saturn V have either been lost or purposely destroyed. The blueprints and other plans still exist on microfilm at the Marshall Space Flight Center.


 * The space.com article is now a dead link (even the Wayback link fails);
 * I question whether this violates the balance requirements of WP:FRINGE. How widespread is this supposedly popular myth? Are we giving it undue weight by mentioning it? JustinTime55 (talk) 21:14, 8 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The Wayback link still refuses to make the citation appear, which makes me think it is also a dead link. Is there some trick to how Wayback works that I'm missing? JustinTime55 (talk) 16:02, 9 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The wayback template was not fully completed. It was specified as:
 * source:
 * result:
 * It should have specified an an available datestamp of the archive:
 * source:
 * result:
 * In any event, I fixed it by avoiding that template completely, and instead using the archive-related parameters on cite web. TJRC (talk) 17:56, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Cancellation of Saturn V second run
When was the second production run supposed to start? When was it cancelled? I presume the run was proposed for resurrection by Saturn V supporters in the seventies and eighties? I would like to learn more about that. Thanks, Rich Peterson198.189.194.129 (talk) 20:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Operation Paperclip site not a reliable source
OperationPaperclip.info says at the bottom of the page: "Content modified from Wikipedia". Therefore it is a circular reference and cannot be used as a source. It also fails to make clear who is responsible for its content. I also removed the statement that the CIA hid von Braun's "Nazi sympathies", which is opinion, not verifiable fact. JustinTime55 (talk) 14:38, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Double brackets
The infobox now says "Payload to TLI (100,000 pounds (45,000 kg))", note the extra brackets. I tried to fix it, but it involves a template and I'm not confident that I'll get it right. Help, anyone? Foolip (talk) 14:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It's apparently a bug in the payloads subtemplate; I was able to fix it by just moving the convert expression from the "pounds" field to the "kilos" field. I also moved the LEO payload to another instance of the subtemplate. This should probably be noted on the template's talk page. JustinTime55 (talk) 14:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Disappointing evolution of the Saturn V Wiki article
As many times as the Wiki Saturn V article has been rewritten, shortened, purged and written again, I am truly disappointed that it persists in being one of the most inaccurate and factually distorted "story lines" in all of the rocket history articles. The "von Braun did it all" mentality that is being pushed as the major story line here is fiction and hype reminiscent of the Cold War yellow press preoccupation with Nazis and 10 foot tall Russians. Let's get some facts straight. The F-1 program began as an Air Force/Rocketdyne program and was transferred to Huntsville after NASA was formed in 1961. Von Braun had been pushing Saturn rockets for sending combat troops around the world, before landing on the moon became an option. Von Braun initially opposed using hydrogen fuel in upper stages until NASA's technical director Abe Silverstein made it clear that hydrogen it would be, so von Braun jumped on the band wagon and began singing the praises of hydrogen. Von Braun did not "design all three stages that were then built buy Douglas, North American and Boeing." Huntsville broke down the specs for the three different sized stages required and Boeing, North American and Douglas designed the stages. There were countless disagreements among contractors and contract administrators in Huntsville, and von Braun was frequently over-ridden by Siverstein and NASA headquarters as were contractors. The whole "Von Braun did it all" storyline is nonsense. NASA did not develop the F-1 and J-2 engines. They were Rocketdyne engines built under NASA administered contracts. And they did not "evolve from V-2 engines". The basic tube-bundle engine design development took place under Sam Hoffman at Rocketdyne during the Navaho program which was Air Force funded. Von Braun was one of many important participants, but to single him out as "the" one out of thousands who did it all or as the only one who had the vision or knew what he was doing is ludicrous and insulting to the thousands of other gifted professionals who made it come to pass. Drop this hero worship BS and write a factual article.Magneticlifeform (talk) 23:07, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * This article should be lengthened instead of purged. I encourage you find inaccuracies and add citation needed tags to them so that they can be corrected by other people who care about the truth over time :) 76.218.200.104 (talk) 10:28, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistency in infobox flight numbers
The infobox lists the Saturn V as having 13 flights; but then says there were 11 successful, 1 partially successful, and 0 failed flights. One of these is clearly wrong, but which? 94.4.106.132 (talk) 23:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for catching that. There were 13 launches (they are in the composite picture farther down), therefore there were 12 complete successes, not counting the single "partial failure". Actually there is some controversy about the definition of "launch success" and "partial failure", given that the second launch did achieve a usable orbit and the spacecraft (Apollo 6) was able to perform a successful mission. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistency of preference for metric or SI units
While reading, I noticed some inconsistency in the usage of SI or metric units when giving numbers in descriptions, so that should probably be standardized. 144.90.153.73 (talk) 01:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect weight according to NASA
Nasa.gov provides the flight manual for the Saturn V,. http://history.nasa.gov/ap12fj/pdf/a12_sa507-flightmanual.pdf and it notes that the whole rocket weighed in at 6,348,659lbs in figure 1-3.

I know Wikipedia isn't famous for allowing updates, especially when actual, provable source evidence presents itself. I'm sure you'd rather me cite a blog or NYT article. But I thought you should at least be told that your article is incorrect according to a little place called NASA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.90.143.45 (talk) 20:16, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Snark aside, that number does not include the mass of the Saturn V payload or LAS. Total mass at liftoff was indeed around 6.6 million lbs. A ( Ch ) 17:15, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

That guy provided a link. A quick search keeps turning up 6.1m to 6.3m lbs. Where is your evidence to support your statement 'it was indeed 6.6 million lbs? Wikipedia seems to be the only place on the internet that thinks the Saturn V weight 6.6 million lbs, is that because you are right, or is it because you are wrong? And at how much evidence needs to be supplied to make the change? Should I list all 160 links that say Wikipedia is wrong or just one?

Here is my link, at NASA http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/rocketry/home/what-was-the-saturn-v-58.html which says 6.2 million lbs AT LAUNCH. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.192.161.179 (talk) 8 November 2014


 * First, assume good faith; attacking other editors does not help your case, especially when your assertion is clearly incorrect. Next, add together the stage weights from the flight manual. The answer is 6.35 million lbs, meaning the 6.2 million in the citation is clearly wrong. Note also that that number does not include the payload, fairing, or LAS mass, meaning total liftoff mass is well over 6.35 million lbs. http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-19_Ground_Ignition_Weights.htm gives the liftoff mass of each Saturn V, with the heaviest at 6,537,238. So yes, 6.6 million lbs is not exactly right, but is a lot closer than 6.2 million or 6,348,659.  A ( Ch ) 19:20, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Can we have an explanation for fuel choices for different stages
Apparently Stage 1 burned RP-1 (kerosene ?) while Stages 2 and 3 burned liquid hydrogen. It would be good if somebody could add the rationale for these choices rather than just the bald facts as at present i.e. the Why to back up the What. Rcbutcher (talk) 11:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The why is easy; it's almost Rocket Design 101. The problem is finding a reliable source to cite. They were chosen to obtain the smallest possible rocket to do the job. LH2 was chosen because it has the highest specific impulse (and thus minimum mass required) of any practical chemical propellant developed so far. (The only higher Isp is LH2 oxidized with liquid fluorine, but this is not really practical because it's such a strong oxidizer, it eats through metal tanks!) The reason LH2 was not used in the first stage, is because it has such a small density. The first stage has to be the largest (because it lifts the upper stages, obviously), and using LH2 instead of RP-1 would require ridiculously large (and therefore heavy) fuel tanks.
 * Even when they were trying to design a Single-stage-to-orbit shuttle in the 1970s-80s, they still had to use RP-1 near sea level, and then switch over to LH2 for the same reason. They would have had to either carry both types of engines (thus wasting some deadhead weight), or else develop a hybrid engine that could switch between the two fuels. JustinTime55 (talk) 18:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Failures (partial vs. total)
Apollo 6 was a partial failure of the Saturn V, according to NASA and to our consensus definition in the infobox template. There were no total failures of the Saturn V. The Apollo 6 payload was still inserted into a usable orbit, and the mission was successfully fulfilled by using the spacecraft's engine to demonstrate a high-speed reentry. Some IP user keeps reverting this, insisting it was a total failure, and making WP:OR claims about it being "ill-fated" and "loss of payload." This person is somehow using two mobile devices with different IP addresses (and the second one uses changing IP addresses.) Please be on the lookout for this. JustinTime55 (talk) 15:06, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

IPs they've used to date:
 * 166.171.250.24
 * 76.118.198.18
 * 2601:6:8280:CB3:E150:458E:E992:E68F
 * 2601:6:8280:CB3:1DA4:8E1E:2BD5:C948
 * 2601:6:8280:cb3:9164:e15a:1a7f:83dc

I believe this person is continuing, and has moved to yet another IP address. I am going to request page protection. JustinTime55 (talk) 17:18, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Failed citation
The citation #21 at the end of the article does not work.TDurden1937 (talk) 04:31, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, unfortunately, NASA shut down NTRS a couple years ago(http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2013/03/ntrs_dark/) and when brought back online, had removed a huge number of technical reports, and is slowwwwwwly reviewing them one at a time to re-assess whether the publication is a national security risk. There's more than one document I've discovered is no longer available.  There's a mechanism to request specific documents, but when I've done that in other cases, I got only that the document is being reviewed, and cannot be provided.  I really want a copy of a 1961 report on Prospector (spacecraft) both to get some definitive references and to add some images to that article, but no such luck.  Maybe this half-century-old document could be used by terrorists!
 * I did a desultory search for a copy of the Saturn V publication elsewhere, but so far no luck. I've marked it as a WP:DEADLINK in the hopes that maybe someone will have better luck than I.  It's still a valid reference, though, and should not be removed. TJRC (talk) 15:51, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Hey, I found another copy at http://history.nasa.gov/ap08fj/pdf/sa503-flightmanual.pdf. But the figures in this Wikipedia article don't appear to match the numbers in the reference; see the "Introduction" section of section 4 of the reference (page 54 in the PDF).  I'm tight on time right now and reluctant to change the article based on what may be an erroneous quick read, but if someone wants to check it out, that would be great.
 * Current text of article, with potential discrepancies noted in [brackets]:
 * "During launch, the S-IC fired its engines for 168 seconds [150.7 seconds? -- but the 168 may be intended to denote 150.7+8.9 seconds of pre-launch burn; still, that would be ~160 seconds, not 168] (ignition occurred about 8.9 seconds before liftoff) and at engine cutoff, the vehicle was at an altitude of about 36 nautical miles [38 miles in ref; is this a miles/nautical miles correction? I haven't calculated.] (67 km), was downrange about 50 nautical miles ["falls to earth about 360 nm downrange", but this may be referring to where hitting ocean rather than sep; still, 310 nm is a big discrepancy at this scale: it sails on for 6x the distance after sep?] (93 km), and was moving about 7,500 feet per second [7700 fps in ref] (2,300 m/s)."
 * Anyone want to have at this? TJRC (talk) 16:07, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the Saturn V is technically "a rocket".
I'm no expert, but isn't the correct term for the vehicles like the Saturn V a "launch vehicle"? It's a unit composed of individual modules, including several rockets. The term "rocket" only refers to the actual individual units composing rocket engines, guidance and associated fuel tanks, while a combination of one or more rocket units and payload (such as the Saturn V) is a "launch vehicle" (unless there is another term for it, and "launch vehicle" only includes the actual propulsive components of the system). I suspect calling such vehicles "rockets" is a popular yet inaccurate terminology..45Colt 23:49, 19 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not an expert either, but I've read extensively on this subject. I think that, based on the definitions of rocket and launch vehicle, the word "rocket" to refer to the Saturn V is correct (it's also correctly called a launch vehicle). The individual modules are called stages, and each has an engine or engines. Green547 (talk) 16:29, 20 July 2015 (UTC)