The S-IVB was the third stage on the Saturn V and second stage on the Saturn IB launch vehicles. Built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, it had one J-2 rocket engine. For lunar missions it was fired twice: first for Earth orbit insertion after second stage cutoff, and then for translunar injection (TLI).
Saturn-Apollo 5 (SA-5) was the first launch of the Block II Saturn I rocket and was part of the Apollo program. In 1963, President Kennedy identified this launch as the one which would place US lift capability ahead of the Soviets, after being behind for more than six years since Sputnik.
A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket uses a rocket engine burning liquid propellants. (Alternate approaches use gaseous or solid propellants.) Liquids are desirable propellants because they have reasonably high density and their combustion products have high specific impulse (Isp). This allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low.
The Saturn IB was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It uprated the Saturn I by replacing the S-IV second stage, with the S-IVB. The S-IB first stage also increased the S-I baseline's thrust from 1,500,000 pounds-force (6,700,000 N) to 1,600,000 pounds-force (7,100,000 N) and propellant load by 3.1%. This increased the Saturn I's low Earth orbit payload capability from 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) to 46,000 pounds (21,000 kg), enough for early flight tests of a half-fueled Apollo command and service module (CSM) or a fully fueled Apollo Lunar Module (LM), before the larger Saturn V needed for lunar flight was ready.
The S-II was the second stage of the Saturn V rocket. It was built by North American Aviation. Using liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) it had five J-2 engines in a quincunx pattern. The second stage accelerated the Saturn V through the upper atmosphere with 1,000,000 pounds-force (4.4 MN) of thrust.
Pogo oscillation is a self-excited vibration in liquid-propellant rocket engines caused by combustion instability. The unstable combustion results in variations of engine thrust, causing variations of acceleration on the vehicle's flexible structure, which in turn cause variations in propellant pressure and flow rate, closing the self-excitation cycle. The name is a metaphor comparing the longitudinal vibration to the bouncing of a pogo stick. Pogo oscillation places stress on the frame of the vehicle, which in severe cases can be dangerous.
The Saturn I was a rocket designed as the United States' first medium lift launch vehicle for up to 20,000-pound (9,100 kg) low Earth orbit payloads. Its development was taken over from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in 1958 by the newly formed civilian NASA. Its design proved sound and flexible. It was successful in initiating the development of liquid hydrogen-fueled rocket propulsion, launching the Pegasus satellites, and flight verification of the Apollo command and service module launch phase aerodynamics. Ten Saturn I rockets were flown before it was replaced by the heavy lift derivative Saturn IB, which used a larger, higher total impulse second stage and an improved guidance and control system. It also led the way to development of the super-heavy lift Saturn V which carried the first men to landings on the Moon in the Apollo program.
The S-IV was the second stage of the Saturn I rocket used by NASA for early flights in the Apollo program.
The Space Shuttle external tank (ET) was the component of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle that contained the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. During lift-off and ascent it supplied the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the three RS-25 main engines in the orbiter. The ET was jettisoned just over 10 seconds after main engine cut-off (MECO) and it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. Unlike the Solid Rocket Boosters, external tanks were not re-used. They broke up before impact in the Indian Ocean, away from shipping lanes and were not recovered.
The John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is a NASA rocket testing facility in Hancock County, Mississippi, United States, on the banks of the Pearl River at the Mississippi–Louisiana border. As of 2012, it is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility. There are over 50 local, state, national, international, private, and public companies and agencies using SSC for their rocket testing facilities.
The F-1 is a rocket engine developed by Rocketdyne. The engine uses a gas-generator cycle developed in the United States in the late 1950s and was used in the Saturn V rocket in the 1960s and early 1970s. Five F-1 engines were used in the S-IC first stage of each Saturn V, which served as the main launch vehicle of the Apollo program. The F-1 remains the most powerful single combustion chamber liquid-propellant rocket engine ever developed.
The J-2, commonly known as Rocketdyne J-2, was a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine used on NASA's Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles. Built in the United States by Rocketdyne, the J-2 burned cryogenic liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) propellants, with each engine producing 1,033.1 kN (232,250 lbf) of thrust in vacuum. The engine's preliminary design dates back to recommendations of the 1959 Silverstein Committee. Rocketdyne won approval to develop the J-2 in June 1960 and the first flight, AS-201, occurred on 26 February 1966. The J-2 underwent several minor upgrades over its operational history to improve the engine's performance, with two major upgrade programs, the de Laval nozzle-type J-2S and aerospike-type J-2T, which were cancelled after the conclusion of the Apollo program.
The S-IB stage was the first stage of the Saturn IB launch vehicle, which was used for Earth orbital missions. It was an upgraded version of the S-I stage used on the earlier Saturn I rocket and was composed of nine propellant containers, eight fins, a thrust structure assembly, eight H-1 rocket engines, and many other components. It also contained the ODOP transponder. The propellant containers consisted of eight Redstone-derived tanks clustered around a Jupiter rocket-derived tank containing LOX. The four outboard engines gimballed to steer the rocket in flight, which required a few more engine components. The S-IB burned for nearly 2.5 minutes before separating at an altitude of 42 miles (68 km).
The Saturn MLV was a proposed concept family of rockets, intended as a follow-on to the Saturn V. MLV stands for "Modified Launch Vehicle".
The Saturn C-3 was the third rocket in the Saturn C series studied from 1959 to 1962. The design was for a three-stage launch vehicle that could launch 45,000 kilograms (99,000 lb) to low Earth orbit and send 18,000 kilograms (40,000 lb) to the Moon via trans-lunar injection.
The Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, had three stages, and was powered by liquid fuel. Flown from 1967 to 1973, it was used for nine crewed flights to the Moon, and to launch Skylab, the first American space station.
A cryogenic rocket engine is a rocket engine that uses a cryogenic fuel and oxidizer; that is, both its fuel and oxidizer are gases which have been liquefied and are stored at very low temperatures. These highly efficient engines were first flown on the US Atlas-Centaur and were one of the main factors of NASA's success in reaching the Moon by the Saturn V rocket.
The S-I was the first stage of the Saturn I rocket used by NASA for the Apollo program.
The Space Launch System core stage, or simply core stage, is the main stage of the American Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, built by The Boeing Company in the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility. At 65 m (212 ft) tall and 8.4 m (27.6 ft) in diameter, the core stage contains approximately 987 t (2,177,000 lb) of its liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen cryogenic propellants. Propelled by 4 RS-25 engines, the stage generates approximately 7.44 MN (1,670,000 lbf) of thrust, about 25% of the Space Launch System's thrust at liftoff, for approximately 500 seconds, propelling the stage alone for the last 375 seconds of flight. The stage lifts the rocket to an altitude of approximately 162 km (531,380 ft) before separating, reentering the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.
S-IC-T is a Saturn V first stage, S-IC rocket, of the three stage rocket system. S-IC-T was built by Boeing Company, under contract from National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to be a static test rocket. The main role of the S-IC-T was the testing of the five liquid fuel rocket engines to be used in the Apollo program. S-IC-T static test fired the rockets at NASA Mississippi Test Facility, now known as Stennis Space Center. S-IC-T was assembled at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. S-IC-T was given the nickname T-Bird. The first burn test was on April 10, 1965. The Saturn V's S-IC-T rocket is a first stage of the super heavy-lift launch vehicle. S-IC-T is now on display at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
