OUTDATED Apollo: Saturn V Stacking in the Vehicle Assembly Building (Blender Animation)
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Major Apollo Spacecraft components were shipped to the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in Florida. This animation shows the generalized stacking process from reception in the VAB low-bay to assembly on the launch pad in high-bay 1. In a relatively short animation, I compress an enormous amount of time. The stacking process took a lot of human labor which I did not animate. The models that I made were for Apollo 15. Other than time and human labor, here are the animation differences with real life:
Apollo 15 only had had 4 solid rocket retros installed on the Saturn V first stage (S1C) where I show 8. Eight retros were the standard for all other launches. The retros were installed after the S1C stage was mounted to the pad.
I show the S1C delivered with the lower skirts installed on the F1 engines. Lower skirts were not actually installed until after mounting to the pad.
Most likely the S1-C was pulled into the VAB and not backed in.
Swing Arm 7 was in place before installing the instrument unit
In real life, swing arm extensions were in place before installing umbilicals
Stage stacking in order:
First Stage (S1C):
*contractor: Boeing
*Propellant: RP-1/LOX
*Engines: 5 x F1 (total 7.75 million lbf thrust)
*burn time: 150 seconds
*height/diameter: 138/33 ft
Second Stage (SII)
*contractor: North American
*Propellant: LH2/LOX
*Engines: 5 x J2 (total 1 million lbf thrust)
*burn time: 367 seconds
*height/diameter: 82/33 ft
Third Stage (SIVB)
contractor: Douglas
Propellant: LH2/LOX
Engines: 1 x J2 (total 200,000 lbf thrust)
burn time: 480 seconds
height/diameter: 58.5/22 ft
Instrument Unit
designed: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
contractor: IBM
height/diameter: 3/22 ft
The fifth lift: Command Service Module (CSM)/Service Module Lunar Module Adapter (SLA)
CSM
contractor: North American
height/diameter: 36.2/12.8 ft
propellant: N2O4/Aerozine 50
Service Propulsion Engine: 1 x AJ10-137 (21,900 lbf thrust)
burn time: 750 sec
SLA (contained Lunar Module and attached Rover)
contractor: North American
height: 28 ft
apex/base diameter: 13/22 ft
Lunar Module (LM)
contractor: Grumman
launch weight with fuel: 33,500 lbs standard (36,200 lbs extended J missions starting with Apollo 15)
Lunar Rover (LRV):
contractor: Boeing/General Motors
electric motor: 4 x 0.25 HP (1 on each wheel)
range: 57 miles
weight: 460 lbs (76 lbs on moon)
The sixth lift: Launch Escape System (LES)
contractor: Lockheed Propulsion Company
height: 32.5 ft
tower jettison motor (Thiokol)
thrust 31,500 lbf for 1.1 seconds
tower escape motor (Lockheed Propulsion Company)
thrust: 200,000 lbf for 4 seconds
Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)
Located at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It is the eighth largest building by volume in the world. It has 4 high-bays which allow the stacking of 4 Apollo spacecraft simultaneously. The building was constructed in a manner to allow constructing a taller roof if needed and the concrete foundation was laid to allow the construction of two more high-bays.