Apollo 7

Apollo 7 (October 11-22, 1968) was the first manned mission in the Apollo program to be launched. It was an eleven-day Earth-orbital mission, the first manned launch of the Saturn IB launch vehicle, and the first three-person American space mission. The flight was an open-ended flight which meant that the mission would continue as long as it was safe and there were enough consumables on board, including oxygen. It flew low around the earth so it could track life-support systems, the propulsion systems and the control systems.

Apollo 7 was a test flight, and confidence-builder. After the January 1967 Apollo launch pad fire, the Apollo command module had been extensively redesigned. Schirra, who would be the only astronaut to fly Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, commanded this Earth-orbital shakedown of the command and service modules. Since it was not carrying a lunar module, Apollo 7 could be launched with the Saturn IB booster rather than the much larger and more powerful Saturn V. Schirra wanted to give Apollo 7 the callsign "Phoenix" (the mythical bird rising from its own ashes) in memory of the loss of the Apollo 1 crew, but NASA management was against the idea.
The Apollo hardware and all mission operations worked without any significant problems, and the Service Propulsion System (SPS), the all-important engine that would place Apollo in and out of lunar orbit, made eight nearly perfect firings.
Even though Apollo's larger cabin was more comfortable than Gemini's, eleven days in orbit took its toll on the astronauts. Tension with Commander Schirra began with the launch decision, when flight managers decided to launch with a less than ideal abort option for the early part of the ascent. Once in orbit, the spacious cabin may have induced some crew motion sickness, which had not been an issue in the earlier, smaller spacecraft. The crew also found the food to be bad. But the worst problem occurred when Schirra developed a bad head cold. As a result, he became irritable with requests from Mission Control and all three began "talking back" to the Capcom. An early example was this exchange after Mission Control requested that a TV camera be turned on in the spacecraft:
SCHIRRA: You've added two burns to this flight schedule, and you've added a urine water dump; and we have a new vehicle up here, and I can tell you this point TV will be delayed without any further discussion until after the rendezvous.CAPCOM: Roger. Copy.SCHIRRA: Roger.CAPCOM: Apollo 7 This is CAP COM number 1.SCHIRRA: Roger.CAPCOM: All we've agreed to do on this is flip it.SCHIRRA: ... with two commanders, Apollo 7CAPCOM: All we have agreed to on this particular pass is to flip the switch on. No other activity is associated with TV; I think we are still obligated to do that.SCHIRRA: We do not have the equipment out; we have not had an opportunity to follow setting; we have not eaten at this point. At this point, I have a cold. I refuse to foul up our time lines this way.
Exchanges such as this would lead to the crew members being passed over for future missions. But the mission successfully proved the space-worthiness of the basic Apollo vehicle, and led directly to the bold decision to launch Apollo 8 to the moon two months later.
Beyond a shakedown of the spacecraft, goals for the mission included the first live television broadcast from an American spacecraft (Gordon Cooper had broadcast slow scan television pictures from Faith 7 in 1963) and testing the lunar module docking maneuver with the launch vehicle's discarded upper stage.
First orbit: perigee 231 km, apogee 297 km, period 89.78 min, inclination 31.63 deg., weight: CSM 14,781 kg.
The splashdown point was 27 deg 32 min N, 64 deg 04 min W, 200 nautical miles (370 km) SSW of Bermuda and 13 km (8.1 mi) north of the recovery ship USS Essex.
Apollo 7 was the only manned Apollo launch to take place from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 34, as all subsequent Apollo (including Apollo-Soyuz) and Skylab missions were launched from Launch Complex 39 at the nearby Kennedy Space Center.
As of 2009, Cunningham is the only surviving member of the crew. Eisele died in 1987 and Schirra in 2007.
In October 2008, NASA administrator Michael D.Griffin awarded the crew of Apollo 7 NASA's Distinguished Service Medal, in recognition of their crucial contribution to the Apollo Program. They had been the only Apollo and Skylab crew not granted this award. Cunningham was present to accept the medal, as were representatives of his deceased crew members, and other Apollo astronauts including Neil Armstrong, Bill Anders, and Alan Bean. Former Mission Control Flight Director Chris Kraft, who was in conflict with the crew during the mission, also sent a conciliatory video message of congratulations, saying: "We gave you a hard time once but you certainly survived that and have done extremely well since...I am frankly, very proud to call you a friend."
The insignia for the flight showed a command and service module with its SPS engine firing, the trail from that fire encircling a globe and extending past the edges of the patch symbolizing the Earth-orbital nature of the mission. The Roman numeral VII appears in the South Pacific Ocean and the crew's names appear on a wide black arc at the bottom. The patch was designed by Allen Stevens of Rockwell International.
In January 1969, the Apollo 7 command module was displayed on a NASA float in the inauguration parade of President Richard M.Nixon. For nearly 30 years the command module was on loan (renewable every two years) to the National Museum of Science and Technology of Canada, in Ottawa, along with the space suit worn by Wally Schirra. In November 2003 the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. requested them back for display at their new annex at the Steven F.Udvar-Hazy Centrer. Currently, the Apollo 7 CM is on loan to the Frontiers of Flight Museum located next to Love Field in Dallas, Texas.

Apollo 6

Apollo 6, launched on April 4, 1968, was the Apollo program's second and last unmanned test flight of its Saturn V launch vehicle.
This was the final qualification flight of the Saturn V before its first manned flight (Apollo 8) (While Apollo 7 was the first manned Apollo mission, it used the smaller Saturn IB, not the Saturn V.) It was also the first mission to use High Bay 3 in the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB), Mobile Launcher 2 and Firing Room 2. Another objective was testing the Command Module re-entry system under extreme conditions simulating a worst-case return from the Moon. This objective was not met due to J-2 engine failures.
The S-IC first stage arrived by barge on March 13, 1967 and was erected in the VAB four days later, with the S-IVB third stage and Instrument Unit computer arriving the same day. The S-II second stage was two months behind them and so was substituted with a dumbbell shaped spacer so testing could proceed. This had the same height and mass as the S-II along with all the electrical connections. The S-II arrived May 24. It was stacked and mated into the rocket on July 7.
Testing was slow as they were still checking out the launch vehicle for Apollo 4, a limitation of the system where there wasn't two of everyone and everything. The VAB could handle up to four Saturn Vs but could only check out one at a time.
The Command and Service Module arrived September 29 and was stacked December 10. It was a hybrid, featuring the Command Module Number 20 and Service Module Number 14 after SM-020 was destroyed in a tank explosion and Command Module Number 14 was dismantled as part of the investigation into the Apollo 1 fire. After two months of testing and repairs the rocket was moved to the pad on February 6, 1968.
Unlike the near perfect flight of Apollo 4, Apollo 6 experienced problems right from the start. Two minutes into the flight, the rocket experienced severe pogo oscillations for about 30 seconds. George Mueller explained the cause to a congressional hearing:
Pogo arises fundamentally because you have thrust fluctuations in the engines. Those are normal characteristics of engines. All engines have what you might call noise in their output because the combustion is not quite uniform, so you have this fluctuation in thrust of the first stage as a normal characteristic of all engine burning.
Now, in turn, the engine is fed through a pipe that takes the fuel out of the tanks and feeds it into the engine. That pipe's length is something like an organ pipe so it has a certain resonance frequency of its own and it really turns out that it will oscillate just like an organ pipe does.
The structure of the vehicle is much like a tuning fork, so if you strike it right, it will oscillate up and down longitudinally. In a gross sense it is the interaction between the various frequencies that causes the vehicle to oscillate.
In part due to the pogo, the spacecraft adaptor that attached the CSM and mockup of the Lunar Module to the rocket started to have some structural problems. Airborne cameras recorded several pieces falling off it at T+133s.
After the first stage was jettisoned at the end of its task, the S-II second stage began to experience its own problems. Engine number two (of five) had performance problems from 206 to 319 seconds after liftoff and then at 412 seconds shut down altogether. Then two seconds later Engine Number Three shut down as well. The onboard computer was able to compensate and the stage burned for 58 seconds more than normal. Even so the S-IVB third stage also had to burn for 29 seconds longer than usual.
The S-IC first stage impacted the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida , while the S-II second stage impacted south of the Azores.
Due to the less than nominal launch, the CSM and S-IVB were now in a 178 by 367 km orbit instead of the planned 160 km circular orbit. But after two orbits of checking out the spacecraft and rocket stage the S-IVB failed to restart to simulate the Trans Lunar Injection burn that would send the astronauts to the moon.
It was decided to use the Service Module engine to raise the spacecraft into a high orbit in order to complete some of the mission objectives. It burned for 442 seconds, longer than it would ever have to on a real Apollo mission and raised the apogee of the orbit to 22,200 km. There was now however not enough fuel to speed up the atmospheric reentry and the spacecraft only entered the atmosphere at a speed of 10,000 m/s instead of the planned 11,270 m/s. This meant it landed 80 km from the planned touch down point.
Ten hours after launch it was lifted on board the USS Okinawa.
S-IVB reentered on April 25, 1968.
The cause of the pogo during the first stage of the flight was well known. However, it had been thought that the rocket had been 'detuned'. To further dampen pressure oscillations in the fuel and oxidzer pumps and feed lines, cavities in these systems were filled with helium gas from the propulsion system's pneumatic control system, which acted to attenuate the oscillations.
The failure of the two engines in the second stage was traced to the rupturing of a fuel line that fed the engine igniters. The igniter was essentially a miniature rocket motor mounted in the wall of the J-2 engine's pressure chamber. It was fed by small-diameter flexible lines carrying liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. During the S-II second stage burn, the hydrogen line feeding the engine number three igniter broke due to vibration. As a result, the igniter fed pure liquid oxygen into the pressure chamber. Normally the J-2 engine burns a hydrogen-rich mixture to keep temperature down. The liquid oxygen flow caused a much higher temperature locally and eventually the pressure chamber failed. The sudden drop in pressure was detected and caused a shutdown command to be issued. Unfortunately, the shutdown command signal for engine three was cross-wired to engine two. Engine two shut down and in turn its pressure sensor sent a shutdown signal back to engine three.
The problem in the igniter fuel lines was not detected during ground testing because a stainless steel mesh covering the fuel line became saturated with liquid air due to the extreme cold of the liquid hydrogen flowing through it. The liquid air damped a vibration mode that became evident when tests were conducted in a vacuum after the Apollo 6 flight. This was also a simple fix, involving replacing the flexible bellows section where the break occurred with a loop of stainless steel pipe. The S-IVB used the same J-2 engine design as the S-II and so it was decided that an igniter line problem had also stopped the third stage from reigniting in Earth orbit.
The spacecraft adapter problem was caused by its honeycomb structure. As the rocket accelerated through the atmosphere, the cells expanded due to trapped air and water. This would cause the adapter surface to break free. To stop this occurring again, small holes were drilled in the surface to allow for expansion.
The problems of the Apollo 6 test would have resulted in an abort of a manned Apollo flight. However, the booster rocket shakedown on this mission was invaluable, as none of the eleven subsequent Saturn V flights experienced any serious problems.
Documentaries often use footage of a Saturn V launch, and one of the most used pieces shows the interstage between the first and second stages falling away. This footage is usually mistakenly attributed to the Apollo 11 mission, when it was actually filmed on the flights of Apollo 4 and Apollo 6.
A compilation of original Nasa footage shows the jettisoning of the first stage (S-IC) and the interstage ring as seen from the bottom of the second stage (S-II), followed by the separation of the S-IVB third stage as seen from the top of the S-II. The hot, invisible hydrogen-oxygen flames of the J-2 engines on the S-II can be seen impinging on the S-IC and the ring. The S-II/S-IVB separation footage shows S-IVB ignition, and both films show the more conspicuous plumes of the solid lower stage retrorockets and upper stage ullage motors as they pull the stages apart.
The cameras filmed at high speeds causing an estimated 15 times slow-motion view of the sequence when seen in a documentary. The camera capsules were jettisoned soon after the first stage separation, and, though at about 200,000 feet in altitude, were still below orbital velocity. They then reentered the atmosphere and parachuted to the ocean, where they floated waiting for recovery. Only one of the two S-II cameras on Apollo 6 was recovered.
Another launch shot often attributed to Apollo 11 and other launches was shot on this day: it shows a view of the rocket lifting up, positioned relatively close up and dead center. The shot can be identified as Apollo 6 by examining the Apollo service module on the launch; Apollo 6 was the only Saturn V-launched Apollo craft with a white SM; all others were silver.
The Apollo 6 Command Module is on display at the Fernbank Science Centre, in suburban Atlanta,Georgia.

Apollo 4

Apollo 4 was the first flight of the saturn V launch vehicle, carrying no crew. It was also the first flight of the S-IC and S-II stages of the rocket.
This was the first flight of the Saturn V, the largest launch vehicle ever to fly successfully. It was also the first launch from Launch Complex 39 specifically built for the Saturn V. As well as being the first launch of the S-IC first stage and S-II second stage, it would also be the first time that the S-IVB third stage had been restarted in Earth orbit and the first time that the Apollo spacecraft had reentered the Earth's atmosphere at speeds approaching those of a lunar return trajectory. Because of all these firsts there were 4,098 measuring instruments on board the rocket and spacecraft.
This would be the first test of the all-up doctrine. It had been decided in 1963 that instead of testing each component of the rocket separately as had been done by Wernher von Braun in Germany during World War II, the rocket would be tested all at once. This cut down the total number of tests, as needed to accomplish President Kennedy's stated goal of a manned lunar landing by 1970, but it meant that everything had to work properly the first time (as the Soviets found to their dismay with their Moon rocket). Apollo program managers had misgivings about all-up testing but agreed to it with some reluctance since individual component tests would inevitably push the landing mission past the 1970 goal.
There were two main payloads on board. CSM-017 was a production model of the spacecraft. It was a Block I design meant for systems testing, and not the Block II spacecraft that had the docking mechanisms necessary for landing on the Moon. However it did feature some Block II upgrades such as an improved heat shield and a new hatch. The other payload was LTA-10R which was a model of the Lunar Module carried as ballast but with the same mass distribution as the real craft.
The first piece of the Apollo 4 to arrive at the Kennedy Space Center was the third stage. This was built by Dougas Aircraft Company and was small enough to be transported by plane, though it was no ordinary plane, being an Aero Spacelines,Inc.Pregnant Guppy. The other stages were much larger and had to travel by barge, with the first stage arriving next from Boeing Company at Michoud,Louisiana along the Banana River. The second stage was late in arriving but the rocket was still erected in the Vertical Assembly Building, using a huge barbell shaped spool in the place of the second stage.
The Command and Service Module (CSM) arrived at the Cape on Christmas Eve 1966, followed by the second stage on 12 January 1967. Only two weeks later the fatal fire in the Apollo 1 spacecraft occurred pushing all the schedules back. An inspection of wiring in the CSM found 1,407 problems.
The stacking of the S-II took place on 23 February. This was a precision process; supposedly the crane operators could conceivably "lower the crane hook on top of an egg without breaking the shell". The piece had to be unstacked after hairline cracks were found in another S-II. The CSM was finally ready as well and on 20 June it was mated to the rocket and the whole launch vehicle rolled out of the VAB on 26 August - six months after the originally scheduled launch date.
After a testing regime that lasted two months the rocket was finally ready for launch. The propellant started being loaded on 6 November. In total there were 89 trailer-truck loads of LOX (liquid oxygen), 28 trailer loads of LH2 (liquid hydrogen), and 27 rail cars of RP-1 (refined kerosene).
The five F-1 engines sent a huge amount of noise across Kennedy Space Center. To protect from a possible explosion, the launch pads at LC-39 were nearly four miles from the Vehicle Assembly Building. However, the noise was much stronger than expected and buffeted the Vehicle Assembly Building, firing room and press buildings. Ceiling tiles fell around Walter Cronkite in the CBS news booth. NASA later built a sound suppression system that pumps thousands of gallons of water onto the flame trench under the pad. A similar system is still used today with Space Shuttle launches.
The perfect launch placed the S-IVB and CSM into a 185 kilometer orbit. After two orbits, the S-IVB reignited for the first time, putting the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of more than 17,000 kilometers. The CSM separated from the S-IVB and fired its Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine to send it out to 18,000 kilometers. Passing apogee, the Service Propulsion System fired again to increase re-entry speed to 40,000 km/h, simulating a return from the moon.
The CM landed 16 km from the target landing site. Its descent was visible from the deck of the USS Bennington, the prime recovery vessel.
Documentaries often use footage of a Saturn V launch, and one of the most used pieces shows the interstage between the first and second stages falling away. This footage is usually mistakenly attributed to the Apollo 11 mission, when it was actually filmed on the flights of Apollo 4 and Apollo 6. Footage from Apollo 4 is even seen in the Star Trek episode "Assignment:Earth".
A compilation of original NASA footage shows the jettisoning of the first stage (S-IC) and the interstage, filmed from the bottom of the second stage (S-II), both from Apollo 4. This is followed by footage of the separation of an S-IVB second stage from the S-II second stage of Apollo 6. The glow seen on the jettisoned stages is due to the hot, invisible hydrogen-oxygen flames of the J-2 engines used by the S-II and S-IVB. The footage also shows the more conspicuous plumes of the solid ullage motors as they pull the stages apart before the main engines are fired.
The cameras ran at 15 times normal speed to show the events in slow motion. The camera capsules were jettisoned soon after the first stage separation and though at about 200,000 feet in altitude, were well below orbital velocity. They then reentered the atmosphere and parachuted to the ocean where they floated waiting for recovery. Both S-II cameras from Apollo 4 were recovered so that there is footage from both sides of the vehicle

Apollo 17

Apollo 17 was the eleventh manned space mission in the NASA Apollo program. It was the first night launch of a US human spaceflight and the sixth and final lunar landing mission of the Apollo program. The mission was launched at 12:33 a.m. EST on December 7, 1972, and concluded on December 19. It remains both the most recent manned moon landing and manned flight beyond low earth orbit. It also broke several records set by previous flights, including longest manned lunar landing flight; longest total lunar surface extravehicular activities; largest lunar sample return, and longest time in lunar orbit.
During the transit to the Moon, the astronauts took a famous photograph of the earth known as " The Blue Marble", which shows almost the entire continent of Africa and the continent of Antarctica. The other lunar landing missions that photographed the earth shortly after lunar orbit insertion showed the western hemisphere.
The landing site for this mission was on the southeastern rim of the Mare Serenitatis, in the southwestern Montes Taurus. This was a dark mantle between three high, steep massifs, in an area known as the Taurus-Littrow region. Pre-mission photographs showed boulders deposited along the bases of the mountains, which could provide bedrock samples. The area also contained a landslide, several impact craters, and some dark craters which could be volcanic.
Apollo 17 was a J-class mission. The crew used a Lunar Rover and conducted three lunar surface excursions, lasting 7.2, 7.6 and 7.3 hours. The mission returned 110.5 lb (50.1 kg) of samples from the Moon.
Schmitt and Cernan collected a record 109 lb (49 kg) of rocks during three Moonwalks. The crew roamed for 34 km (21 mi) through the Taurus-Littrow valley in their rover, discovered orange-colored soil, and left the most comprehensive set of instruments in the ALSEP on the lunar surface. Their mission was the last in the Apollo lunar landing missions. The last 4 Apollo craft were used for the three Skylab missions and the ASTP mission in 1975.
Eugene Cernan is, to date, the last man to have walked on the Moon. Just before he returned to the Lunar Module for the last time, he said,
"As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come — but we believe not too long into the future — I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record — that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."
His last words before liftoff were the more prosaic "Let's get this mother out of here".
A plaque left on the ladder of the descent stage of Challenger reads: "Here Man completed his first explorations of the moon. December 1972 AD. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind". The plaque showed two hemispheres of Earth and the near side of the Moon, plus the signatures of Cernan, Evans, Schmitt, and President Nixon.
Like the astronauts of Apollo 10,12,13, and 14 before them, the Apollo 17 crew were recovered in Pacific waters near American Samoa after splashdown. The recovery operation was performed by US Navy helicopter squadron HC-1, with Commander Edward E Dahill III as prime recovery pilot flying helicopter 001. Commander Dahill flew the astronauts to the nearby recovery ship USS Ticonderoga. They were subsequently flown from the recovery ship to the airport at Tafuna where they were greeted with an enthusiastic (and well practiced) Samoan reception before being flown on to Honolulu, thence to Houston.
Commander Eugene Cernan had taken a Czechoslovak flag with him to the Moon because his ancestors came from Czechoslovakia. Later he gave it to the Institute of Astronomy in Ondrejov (now Czech Republic).
The circular patch is one of the most detailed of the Apollo series. The official NASA press release said: "The insignia is dominated by the image of Apollo, the Greek sun god. Suspended in space behind the head of Apollo is an American eagle of contemporary design, the red bars of the eagle's wing represent the bars in the US flag; the three white stars symbolize the three astronaut crewmen. The background is deep blue space and within it are the Moon, the planet Saturn and a spiral galaxy or nebula. The Moon is partially overlaid by the eagle's wing suggesting that this is a celestial body that man has visited and in that sense conquered. The thrust of the eagle and the gaze of Apollo to the right and toward Saturn and the galaxy is meant to imply that man's goals in space will someday include the planets and perhaps the stars. The colors of the emblem are red, white and blue, the colors of the U.S. flag; with the addition of gold, to symbolize the golden age of space flight that will begin with this Apollo 17 lunar landing. The Apollo image used in this emblem was the Apollo of Belvedere sculpture now in the Vatican Gallery in Rome. This emblem was designed by artist Robert T. McCall in collaboration with the astronauts." The insignia is surrounded by a light gray band with names of the crew and the words APOLLO XVII.

The Saturn 5 Rocket

The Saturn V was a multistage liquid-fuel expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. In total NASA launched thirteen Saturn V rockets with no loss of payload. It remains the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever brought to operational status from a height, weight and payload standpoint. The Soviet Energia, which flew two test missions in the late 1980s before being canceled, had slightly more takeoff thrust.
The largest production model of the Saturn family of rockets, the Saturn V was designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,Alabama, with Boeing,North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft Company, and IBM as the lead contractors. The three stages of the Saturn V were developed by various NASA contractors, but following a sequence of mergers and takeovers all of them are now owned by Boeing.

In 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite.Lyndon B.Johnson—at the time Senate Majority Leader and later the President—recalled feeling "the profound shock of realizing that it might be possible for another nation to achieve technological superiority over this great country of ours." The resulting Sputnik crisis continued, and by 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth aboard Vostok 1during the first human spaceflight, many people in the United States felt the Soviets had developed a considerable lead in the Space Race.
On May 25,1961, President Kennedy announced that America would attempt to land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. At that time, the only experience the United States had with human spaceflight was the 15-minute suborbital flight of Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7. No rocket then available was capable of propelling a manned spacecraft to the Moon in one piece. The saturn I was in development, but would not fly for six months. Although larger than other contemporary rockets, it would require several launches to place all the components of a lunar spacecraft in orbit. The much larger Saturn V had not been designed, although its powerful F-1 engine had already been developed and test fired.
Early in the planning process, NASA considered three leading ideas for the moon mission:Earth Orbit Rendezvous,Direct Ascent, and Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR). A direct ascent configuration would launch a larger rocket which would land directly on the lunar surface, while an Earth orbit rendezvous would launch two smaller spacecraft which would combine in Earth orbit. A LOR mission would involve a single rocket launching a single spacecraft, but only a small part of that spacecraft would land on the moon. That smaller landing module would then rendezvous with the main spacecraft, and the crew would return home.
NASA at first dismissed LOR as a riskier option, given that an orbital rendezvous had yet to be performed in Earth orbit, much less in lunar orbit. Several NASA officials, including Langley Research Center engineer john Houbolt and NASA Administrator George Low argued that a Lunar Orbit Rendezvous provided the simplest landing on the moon, the most cost–efficient launch vehicle and, perhaps most importantly, the best chance to accomplish a lunar landing within the decade. Other NASA officials were convinced, and LOR was officially selected as the mission configuration for the Apollo program on 7 November, 1962.
Between 1960 and 1962, the Marshall space Flight Center (MSFC) designed rockets that could be used for various missions.
The C-1 was developed into the Saturn I, and the C-2 rocket was dropped early in the design process in favor of the C-3, which was intended to use two F-1 engines on its first stage, four J-2 engines for its second stage, and an S-IV stage, using six RL-10 engines.
NASA planned to use the C-3 as part of the Earth Orbit Rendezvous concept, with at least four or five launches needed for a single mission, but MSFC was already planning an even bigger rocket, the C-4, which would use four F-1 engines on its first stage, an enlarged C-3 second stage, and the S-IVB, a stage with a single J-2 engine, as its third stage. The C-4 would need only two launches to carry out an Earth Orbit Rendezvous mission.
On January 10,1962, NASA announced plans to build the C-5. The three-stage rocket would consist of five F-1 engines for the first stage, five J-2 engines for the second stage, and a single, additional J-2 engine for the third stage. The C-5 was designed for the higher payload capacity necessary for a lunar mission, and could carry up to 41,000 kg into lunar orbit.
The C-5 would undergo component testing even before the first model was constructed. The rocket's third stage would be utilized as the second stage for the C-IB, which would serve both to demonstrate proof of concept and feasibility for the C-5, but would also provide flight data critical to the continued development of the C-5. Rather than undergoing testing for each major component, the C-5 would be tested in an "all-up" fashion, meaning that the first test flight of the rocket would include complete versions of all three stages. By testing all components at once, far fewer test flights would be required before a manned launch.
The C-5 was confirmed as NASA's choice for the Apollo Program in early 1963, and was given a new name—the Saturn V.
The Saturn V's huge size and payload capacity dwarfed all other previous rockets which had successfully flown at that time. With the Apollo spacecraft on top it stood 363 feet (111 m) tall and without fins it was 33 feet (10 m) in diameter. Fully fueled it had a total mass of 6.5 million pounds (2.9 million kg) and a payload capacity of 260,000 pounds (118,000 kg) to LEO. Comparatively, at 363 feet (111 m), the Saturn V is just one foot shorter than St Paul's Cathedral in London, and only cleared the doors of the vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) by 6 ft (1.82 m) when rolled out. In contrast, the Redstone used on Freedom 7, the first manned American spaceflight, was just under 11 feet (3.4 m) longer than the S-IVB stage, and less powerful than the Launch Escape system rockets mounted on the Apollo command module.
Saturn V was principally designed by the Marshall space Flight center in huntsville,Alabama ,although numerous major systems, including propulsion, were designed by subcontractors. It used the powerful new F-1 and J-2 rocket engines for propulsion. When tested, these engines shattered the windows of nearby houses. Designers decided early on to attempt to use as much technology from the Saturn I program as possible. As such, the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn V was based on the S-IV second stage of the Saturn I. The instrument unit that controlled the Saturn V shared characteristics with that carried by the Saturn I.
The Saturn V consisted of three stages – the S-IC first stage, S-II second stage and the S-IVB third stage – and the instrument unit. All three stages used liquid oxygen (LOX) as an oxidizer. The first stage used RP-1 for fuel, while the second and third stages used liquid hydrogen (LH2). The upper stages also used small solid-fueled ullage motors that helped to separate the stages during the launch, and to ensure that the liquid propellants were in a proper position to be drawn into the pumps.
The S-IC was built by The Boeing Company at the Michoud Assembly Facility,New Orleans, where the Space Shuttle External Tanks are now constructed. Most of its mass of over two thousand metric tonnes at launch was propellant, in this case RP-1rocket fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. It was 138 feet (42 m) tall and 33 feet (10 m) in diameter, and provided over 34 MN (7.64 million pounds force) of thrust to get the rocket through the first 61 kilometers of ascent. The S-IC stage had a dry weight of about 288,000 pounds (131,000 kg) and fully fueled at launch had a total weight of some 5.0 million pounds (2.3 million kg). The five F-1 engines were arranged in a cross pattern. The center engine was fixed, while the four outer engines could be hydraulically turned ("gimballed") to control the rocket. In flight, the center engine was turned off about 26 seconds earlier than the outboard engines to limit acceleration. During launch, the S-IC fired its engines for 168 seconds (ignition occurred about 7 seconds before liftoff) and at engine cutoff, the vehicle was at an altitude of about 42 miles (68 km), was downrange about 58 miles (93 km), and was moving about 7,850 ft/sec (2,390 m/sec, or approximately 5352 mph).
The S-II was built by North American Aviation at Seal beach,California. Using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, it had five J-2 engines in a similar arrangement to the S-IC, also using the outer engines for control. The S-II was 81 feet and 7 inches (24.9 m) tall with a diameter of 33 feet (10 m), identical to the S-IC, and thus is the largest cryogenic stage ever built. The S-II had a dry weight of about 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg) and fully fueled, weighed 1.06 million pounds (480,000 kg). The second stage accelerated the Saturn V through the upper atmosphere with 5.1 MN of thrust (in vacuum). When loaded, significantly more than 90 percent of the mass of the stage was propellant, however, the ultra-lightweight design had led to two failures in structural testing. Instead of having an intertank structure to separate the two fuel tanks as was done in the S-IC, the S-II used a common bulkhead that was constructed from both the top of the LOX tank and bottom of the LH2 tank. It consisted of two aluminum sheets separated by a honeycomb structure made of phenolic resin.This had to insulate against the 70 °C (125 °F) temperature difference between the two tanks. The use of a common bulkhead saved 3.6 metric tons in weight. Like the S-IC, the S-II was transported by sea.
The S-IVB was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company at Huntington beach, Califiornia. It had one J-2 engine and used the same fuel as the S-II. The S-IVB used a common bulkhead to insulate the two tanks. It was 58 feet and 7 inches (17.85 m) tall with a diameter of 21 feet and 8 inches (6.60 m) and was also designed with high mass efficiency, though not quite as aggressively as the S-II. The S-IVB had a dry weight of about 25,000 pounds (11,000 kg) and fully fueled, weighed about 262,000 pounds (119,000 kg). This stage was used twice during the mission: first in a 2.5 min burn for the orbit insertion after second stage cutoff, and later for the trans lunar injection (TLI) burn, lasting about 6 mins. Two liquid-fueled auxiliary propulsion system units mounted at the aft end of the stage were used for attitude control during the parking orbit and the trans-lunar phases of the mission. The two APSs were also used as ullage engines to help settle the fuel prior to the translunar injection burn.
The S-IVB was the only rocket stage of the Saturn V small enough to be transported by plane, in this case the Guppy. Apart from the interstage adapter and the stage restart capability, this stage is nearly identical to the second stage of the Saturn 1B rocket.
The Instrument Unit was built by IBM and rode atop the third stage. It was constructed at the Space Systems Center in Huntsville. This computer controlled the operations of the rocket from just before liftoff until the S-IVB was discarded. It included guidance and telemetry systems for the rocket. By measuring the acceleration and vehicle attitude, it could calculate the position and velocity of the rocket and correct for any deviations.
In the event of an abort requiring the destruction of the rocket, the range safety officer would remotely shut down the engines and after several seconds send another command for the shaped explosive charges attached to the outer surfaces of the rocket to detonate. These would make cuts in fuel and oxidizer tanks to disperse the fuel quickly and to minimize mixing. The pause between these actions would give time for the crew to escape using the Launch Escape Tower or (in the later stages of the flight) the propulsion system of the Service module. A third command, "safe", was used after the S-IVB stage reached orbit to irreversibly deactivate the self-destruct system. The system was also inactive as long as the rocket was still on the launch pad.
The Soviet counterpart of the Saturn V was the N-1 rocket. The Saturn V was taller, heavier and had greater payload capacity, but the N-1 had more liftoff thrust and a larger first stage diameter. The N1 had four test launches before the program was canceled, each resulting in the vehicle catastrophically failing early in the flight. The first stage of Saturn V used five powerful engines rather than the 30 smaller engines of the N-1. During two launches,Apollo 6 and Apollo 13, the Saturn V was able to recover from engine loss incidents. The N-1 likewise was designed to compensate for engine failures, but the system never successfully saved a launch from failure.
The three-stage Saturn V had a peak thrust of at least 34.02 MN(SA-510 and subsequent) and a lift capacity of 118,000 kg to LEO. The SA-510 mission (Apollo 15) had a liftoff thrust of 7.823 million pounds (34.8 MN). The SA-513 mission (Skylab) had slightly greater liftoff thrust of 7.891 million pounds (35.1 MN). No other operational launch vehicle has ever surpassed the Saturn V in height, weight, or payload. If the two Soviet Energia test launches are counted as operational, it had the same liftoff thrust as SA-513, 35.1 MN. The N-1 had a sea-level liftoff thrust of about 9.9 million pounds (44.1 MN), but it never achieved orbit.
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. Planned uprated versions of the Saturn V using F-1A engines would have had about 18 percent more thrust and 137,250 kg (302,580 lb) payload. NASA contemplated building larger members of the Saturn family, such as the Saturn C-8, and also unrelated rockets, such as Nova, but these were never produced.
The Space Shuttle generates a peak thrust of 30.1 MN, and payload capacity to LEO (excl. Shuttle Orbiter itself) is 28,800 kg, which is about 25 percent of the Saturn V's payload. If the Shuttle Orbiter itself is counted as payload, this would be about 112,000 kg (248,000 lb). An equivalent comparison would be the Saturn V S-IVB third stage total orbital mass on Apollo 15, which was 140,976 kg (310,800 lb).
Some other recent launch vehicles have a small fraction of the Saturn V's payload capacity: the European Ariane 5 with the newest versions Ariane 5 ECA delivers up to 10,000 kg to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The US Delta 4 Heavy, which launched a dummy satellite on December 21,2004, has a capacity of 13,100 kg to geosynchronous transfer orbit. The Atlas V rocket (using engines based on a Russian design) delivers up to 25,000 kg to LEO and 13,605 kg to GTO.
Because of its large size, attention is often focused on the S-IC thrust and how this compares to other large rockets. However, several factors make such comparisons more complex than first appears:
Commonly-referenced thrust numbers are a specification, not an actual measurement. Individual stages and engines may fall short or exceed the specification, sometimes significantly.
The F-1 thrust specification was uprated beginning with Apollo 15 (SA-510) from 1.5 million lbf (6.67 MN) to 1.522 million lbf (6.77 MN), or 7.61 million lbf (33.85 MN) for the S-IC stage. The higher thrust was achieved via a redesign of the injector orifices and a slightly higher propellant mass flow rate. However, comparing the specified number to the actual measured thrust of 7.823 million lbf (34.8 MN) on Apollo 15 shows a significant difference.
There is no "bathroom scale" way to directly measure thrust of a rocket in flight. Rather a mathematical calculation is made from combustion chamber pressure, turbopump speed, calculated propellant density and flow rate, nozzle design, and atmospheric conditions, in particular, external pressure.
Thrust varies greatly with external pressure and thus, with altitude, even for a non-throttled engine. For example on Apollo 15, the calculated total liftoff thrust (based on actual measurements) was about 7.823 million lbf (34.8 MN), which increased to 9.18 million lbf (40.8 MN) at T+135 seconds, just before center engine cutoff (CECO), at which time the jet was heavily underexpanded.
Thrust specifications are often given as vacuum thrust (for upper stages) or sea level thrust (for lower stages or boosters), sometimes without qualifying which one. This can lead to incorrect comparisons.
Thrust specifications are often given as average thrust or peak thrust, sometimes without qualifying which one. Even for a non-throttled engine at a fixed altitude, thrust can often vary somewhat over the firing period due to several factors. These include intentional or unintentional mixture ratio changes, slight propellant density changes over the firing period, and variations in turbopump, nozzle and injector performance over the firing period.
Without knowing the exact measurement technique and mathematical method used to determine thrust for each different rocket, comparisons are often inexact. As the above shows, the specified thrust often differs significantly from actual flight thrust calculated from direct measurements. The thrust stated in various references is often not adequately qualified as to vacuum vs sea level, or peak vs average thrust.
Similarly, payload increases are often achieved in later missions independent of engine thrust. This is by weight reduction or trajectory reshaping.
The result is there is no single absolute figure for engine thrust, stage thrust or vehicle payload. There are specified values and actual flight values, and various ways of measuring and deriving those actual flight values.
The performance of each Saturn V launch was extensively analyzed and a Launch Evaluation Report produced for each mission, including a thrust/time graph for each vehicle stage on each mission.
After the construction of a stage was completed, it was shipped to the Kennedy Space Center. The first two stages were so large that the only way to transport them was by barge. The S-IC constructed in New Orleans was transported down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. After rounding Florida, it was then transported up the Intra-Coastal Waterway to the Vertical Assembly Building (now called the Vehicle Assembly Building). The S-II was constructed in California and so traveled via the Panama Canal. The third stage and Instrument Unit could be carried by the Aero Spacelines Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy,crimeajewel.
On arrival at Vertical Assembly Building, each stage was checked out in a horizontal position before being moved to a vertical position. NASA also constructed large spool-shaped structures that could be used in place of stages if a particular stage was late. These spools had the same height and mass and contained the same electrical connections as the actual stages.
NASA assembled the Saturn V on a mobile launch platform, which consisted of a Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT), Crawler Transporter, and Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP). The whole structure was then moved from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to the launch complex using the Crawler Transporter (CT). The CT is still in use today by the Space Shuttle and will be used in NASA's next manned space system, The Constellation Program. The CT runs on four double tracked treads, each with 57 'shoes'. Each shoe weighs 900 kg (2,000 lb). This transporter had to keep the rocket level as it traveled the 3 miles (5 km) to the launch site.
The Saturn V carried all Apollo lunar missions. All Saturn V missions launched from Launch Complex 39 at the John F.Kennedy Space Center. After the rocket cleared the launch tower, mission control transferred to the Johnson Space Center in Houston,Texas.
An average mission used the rocket for a total of just 20 minutes. Although Apollo 6 and Apollo 13 experienced engine failures, the onboard computers were able to compensate by burning the remaining engines longer, and none of the Apollo launches resulted in a payload loss.
The first stage burned for 2.5 minutes, lifting the rocket to an altitude of 42 miles (68 km) and a speed of 6,164 miles per hour (9,920 km/h) and burning 2,000,000 kilograms (4,400,000 lb) of propellant.
At 8.9 seconds before launch, the first stage ignition sequence started. The center engine ignited first, followed by opposing outboard pairs at 300-millisecond intervals to reduce the structural loads on the rocket. When thrust had been confirmed by the onboard computers, the rocket was "soft-released" in two stages: first, the hold-down arms released the rocket, and second, as the rocket began to accelerate upwards, it was slowed by tapered metal pins pulled through dies for half a second. Once the rocket had lifted off, it could not safely settle back down onto the pad if the engines failed.
It took about 12 seconds for the rocket to clear the tower. During this time, it yawed 1.25 degrees away from the tower to ensure adequate clearance despite adverse winds. (This yaw, although small, can be seen in launch photos taken from the east or west.) At an altitude of 430 feet (130 m) the rocket rolled to the correct flight azimuth and then gradually pitched down until 38 seconds after second stage ignition. This pitch program was set according to the prevailing winds during the launch month. The four outboard engines also tilted toward the outside so that in the event of a premature outboard engine shutdown the remaining engines would thrust through the rocket's center of gravity. The Saturn V quickly accelerated, reaching 1,600 feet per second (490 m/s) at over 1 mile (1.6 km) in altitude. Much of the early portion of the flight was spent gaining altitude, with the required velocity coming later.
At about 80 seconds, the rocket experienced maximum dynamic pressure (Max Q). The dynamic pressure on a rocket varies with air density and the square of relative velocity. Although velocity continues to increase, air density decreases so quickly with altitude that dynamic pressure falls below Max Q.
Acceleration increased during S-IC flight for two reasons: decreasing propellant mass; and increasing thrust as F-1 engine efficiency improved in the thinner air at altitude. At 135 seconds, the inboard (center) engine shut down to limit acceleration to 3 g. Acceleration again increased to 4 g just before first stage cut off. The other engines continued to burn until either oxidizer or fuel depletion as detected by sensors in the suction assemblies. First stage separation was a little less than one second after cutoff to allow for F-1 thrust tail-off. Eight small solid fuel separation motors backed the S-IC from the interstage at an altitude of about 67 kilometres (42 mi). The first stage continued ballistically to an altitude of about 109 kilometres (68 mi) and then fell in the Atlantic Ocean about 560 kilometres (350 mi) downrange.
After S-IC separation, the S-II second stage burned for 6 minutes and propelled the craft to 109 miles (176 km) and 15,647 mph (25,182 km/h – 7.00 km/s), close to orbital velocity.
For the first two unmanned launches, eight solif-fuel ullage motors ignited for four seconds to give positive acceleration to the S-II stage, followed by start of the five J-2 engines. For the first seven manned Apollo missions only four ullage motors were used on the S-II, and they were eliminated completely for the final four launches. About 30 seconds after first stage separation, the interstage ring dropped from the second stage. This was done with an inertially fixed attitude so that the interstage, only 1 meter from the outboard J-2 engines, would fall cleanly without contacting them. Shortly after interstage separation the Launch Escape System was also jettisoned. See Apollo abort modes for more information about the various abort modes that could have been used during a launch.
About 38 seconds after the second stage ignition the Saturn V switched from a preprogrammed trajectory to a "closed loop" or Iterative Guidance Mode. The Instrument Unit now computed in real time the most fuel-efficient trajectory toward its target orbit. If the Instrument Unit failed, the crew could switch control of the Saturn to the Command Module's computer, take manual control, or abort the flight.
About 90 seconds before the second stage cutoff, the center engine shut down to reduce longitudinal pogo oscillations. A pogo suppressor, first flown on Apollo 14, stopped this motion but the center engine was still shut down early to limit acceleration G forces. At around this time, the LOX flow rate decreased, changing the mix ratio of the two propellants, ensuring that there would be as little propellant as possible left in the tanks at the end of second stage flight. This was done at a predetermined delta-v.
Five level sensors in the bottom of each S-II propellant tank were armed during S-II flight, allowing any two to trigger S-II cutoff and staging when they were uncovered. One second after the second stage cut off it separated and several seconds later the third stage ignited. Solid fuel retro-rockets mounted on the interstage at the top of the S-II fired to back it away from the S-IVB. The S-11 impacted about 4200 km (2,300 miles) from the launch site.
Unlike the two-phase separation of the S-IC and S-II, the S-II and S-IVB stages separated with a single step. Although it was constructed as part of the third stage, the interstage remained attached to the second stage.
During Apollo 11, a typical lunar mission, the third stage burned for about 2.5 minutes until first cutoff at 11 minutes 40 seconds. At this point it was 2640 km downrange and in a parking orbit at an altitude of 188 km and velocity of 7790 m/sec. The third stage remained attached to the spacecraft while it orbited the Earth two and a half times while astronauts and mission controllers prepared for translunar injection (TLI).
This parking orbit is quite low by Earth orbit standards, and it would have been short-lived due to aerodynamic drag. This was not a problem on a lunar mission because of the short stay in the parking orbit. The S-IVB also continued to thrust at a low level with hydrogen vents to settle the propellants in their tanks, and this thrust easily exceeded aerodynamic drag.
For the final three Apollo flights, the temporary parking orbit was even lower (approximately 150 kilometres (93 mi)), to increase payload for these missions. For the two Earth orbit missions of the Saturn V, Apollo 9 and Skylab, the orbits were much higher and more typical of manned orbital missions.
On Apollo 11, TLI came at 2 hours and 44 minutes after launch. The S-IVB burned for almost six minutes giving the spacecraft a velocity close to the earth's escape velocity of 11.2 km/s (40,320 km/h; 25,053 mph). This gave an energy-efficient transfer to lunar orbit with the moon helping to capture the spacecraft with a minimum of CSM fuel consumption.
About 40 minutes after TLI the Apollo Command Service Module (CSM) separated from the third stage, turned 180 degrees and docked with the Lunar Module (LM) that rode below the CSM during launch. The CSM and LM separated from the spent third stage 50 minutes later.
If it were to remain on the same trajectory as the spacecraft, the S-IVB could have presented a collision hazard so its remaining propellants were vented and the auxiliary propulsion system fired to move it away. For lunar missions before Apollo 13, the S-IVB was directed toward the moon's trailing edge in its orbit so that the moon would slingshot it beyond earth escape velocity and into solar orbit. From Apollo 13 onwards, controllers directed the S-IVB to hit the Moon.Seismometers left behind by previous missions detected the impacts, and the information helped map the inside of the Moon.
Apollo 9 was a special case; although it was an earth orbital mission, after spacecraft separation its S-IVB was fired out of earth orbit into a solar orbit.
On September 3,2002,Bill Young discovered a suspected asteroid, which was given the discovery designation J002E3. It appeared to be in orbit around the Earth, and was soon discovered from spectral analysis to be covered in white titanium dioxide paint, the same paint used for the Saturn V. Calculation of orbital parameters identified the apparent asteroid as being the Apollo 12 S-IVB stage. Mission controllers had planned to send Apollo 12's S-IVB into solar orbit, but the burn after separating from the Apollo spacecraft lasted too long, and hence it did not pass close enough to the Moon, remaining in a barely-stable orbit around the Earth and Moon. In 1971, through a series of gravitational perturbations, it is believed to have entered in a solar orbit and then returned into weakly-captured Earth orbit 31 years later. It left Earth orbit again in June 2003.
In 1968, the Apollo Applications Program was created to look into science missions that could be performed with the surplus Apollo hardware. Much of the planning centered on the idea of a space station, which eventually spawned the Skylab program. Skylab was launched using a two-stage Saturn V, sometimes called a Saturn INT-21,. It was the only launch not directly related to the Apollo lunar landing program.
Originally it was planned to use a 'wet workshop' concept, with a rocket stage being launched into orbit by a Saturn 1B and its spent S-IVB outfitted in space, but this was abandoned for the 'dry workshop' concept: An S-IVB stage from a Saturn IB was converted into a space station on the ground and launched on a Saturn V. A backup, constructed from a Saturn V third stage, is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
Three crews lived aboard Skylab from May 25,1973 to February 8,1974, with Skylab remaining in orbit until July 11,1979.
It was originally hoped that Skylab would stay in orbit long enough to be visited by the Space Shuttle during its first few flights. The Shuttle could have raised Skylab's orbit, and allowed it to be used as a base for future space stations. However, the Shuttle did not fly until 1981, and it is now realized in retrospect that Skylab would have been of little use, as it was not designed to be refurbished and replenished with supplies.
The (canceled) second production run of Saturn Vs would very likely have used the F-1A engine in its first stage, providing a substantial performance boost. Other likely changes would have been the removal of the fins (which turned out to provide little benefit when compared to their weight); a stretched S-IC first stage to support the more powerful F-1As; and uprated J-2s for the upper stages.
A number of alternate Saturn vehicles were proposed based on the Saturn V, ranging from the Saturn INT-20 with an S-IVB stage and interstage mounted directly onto an S-IC stage, through to the Saturn V-23(L) which would not only have five F-1 engines in the first stage, but also four strap-on boosters with two F-1 engines each: giving a total of thirteen F-1 engines firing at launch.
The Space Shuttle was initially conceived of as a cargo transport to be used in concert with the Saturn V, even to the point that a "Saturn-Shuttle," using the current orbiter and external tank, but with the tank mounted on a modified, fly-back version of the S-IC, would be used to power the Shuttle during the first two minutes of flight, after which the S-IC would be jettisoned (which would then fly back to KSC for refurbishment) and the Space Shuttle Main Engines would then fire and place the orbiter into orbit. The Shuttle would handle space station logistics, while Saturn V would launch components. Lack of a second Saturn V production run killed this plan and has left the United States without a heavy-lift booster. Some in the U.S. space community have come to lament this situation, as continued production would have allowed the International Space station, using a Skylab or Mir configuration with both U.S. and Russian docking ports, to have been lifted with just a handful of launches, with the "Saturn Shuttle" concept possibly eliminating the conditions that caused the Challenger Disaster in 1986.
The Saturn V would have been the prime launch vehicle for the canceled Voyager Mars probes, and was to have been the launch vehicle for the nuclear rocket stage RIFT test program and the later NERVA.
U.S. proposals for a rocket larger than the Saturn V from the late 1950s through the early 1980s were generally called Nova. Over thirty different large rocket proposals carried the Nova name.
Wernher von Braun and others also had plans for a rocket that would have featured eight F-1 engines in its first stage allowing it to launch a manned spacecraft on a direct ascent flight to the Moon. Other plans for the Saturn V called for using a Centaur as an upper stage or adding strap-on boosters. These enhancements would have increased its ability to send large unmanned spacecraft to the outer planets or manned spacecraft to Mars.
In 2006, NASA unveiled plans to construct the heavy-lift Ares V rocket, a Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicle using some existing Space shuttle infrastructure. Named in homage of the Saturn V, the original design was 360 ft (110 m). tall, powered by five Space Shuttle Main engines (SSMEs) and two 5-segment Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters. The Ares V design evolved, later using five RS-68 engines, primarily due to the higher thrust and cheaper pricetag than the SSME. In 2008, NASA unveiled a new design using six RS-68B engines with two "5.5-segment" SRBs. The vehicle would have a total of approx. 8,900,000 lbf (39,600,000 N·m). of thrust at liftoff, making it more powerful than the Saturn V or the Soviet/Russian N-1 and Energia boosters. An upper stage, known as the Earth Departure Stage and based on the S-IVB, will utilize a more advanced version of the J-2 engine known as the "J-2X," and will place the Altair lunar landing vehicle into a low earth orbit. At 381 ft (116 m). tall and with the capability of placing ~180 tons into low earth orbit, the Ares V will surpass the Saturn V and the two Soviet/Russian superboosters in both height, lift, and launch capability.
The RS-68B engines, based on the current RS-68 engines built by the Rocketdyne Division of Pratt and Whitney (formerly under the ownerships of Boeing and Rockwell International) produce less than half the thrust per engine as the Saturn V's F-1 engines, but are more efficient and can be throttled up or down, much like the SSMEs on the Shuttle. The J-2 engine used on the S-II and S-IVB will be modified into the improved J-2X engine for use both on the Earth Departure stage (EDS) as well as on the second stage of the proposed Ares I. Both the EDS and the Ares I second stage would use a single J-2X motor, although the EDS was originally designed to use two motors until the redesign employing the five (later six) RS-68Bs in place of the five SSMEs.