The Saturn V Rocket: Every Stage & Step to the Moon
John Williams explains and shows you the Saturn V rocket, every stage, the engines and how the rocket and lunar spacecraft made it to the moon and back. The Saturn V display at the Davidson Center at the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
_________________________________________________
Space Intelligence shares fun facts and excitement about space history, current space missions and future space exploration. John Williams is an avid fan and young space historian. His videos are designed to educate others to learn more about space history and technology.
Attributed content below:
Link: NASA
The Saturn V was a rocket NASA built to send people to the moon. (The V in the name is the Roman numeral five.) The Saturn V was a type of rocket called a Heavy Lift Vehicle. That means it was very powerful. It was the most powerful rocket that had ever flown successfully. The Saturn V was used in the Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s. It also was used to launch the Skylab space station.
How Big Was the Saturn V?
The Saturn V rocket was 111 meters (363 feet) tall, about the height of a 36-story-tall building, and 18 meters (60 feet) taller than the Statue of Liberty. Fully fueled for liftoff, the Saturn V weighed 2.8 million kilograms (6.2 million pounds), the weight of about 400 elephants. The rocket generated 34.5 million newtons (7.6 million pounds) of thrust at launch, creating more power than 85 Hoover Dams.
What Is the History of the Saturn V?
The Saturn V was developed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. It was one of three types of Saturn rockets NASA built. Two smaller rockets, the Saturn I (1) and IB (1b), were used to launch humans into Earth orbit. The Saturn V sent them beyond Earth orbit to the moon. The first Saturn V was launched in 1967. It was called Apollo 4. Apollo 6 followed in 1968. Both of these rockets were launched without crews. These launches tested the Saturn V rocket.
The first Saturn V launched with a crew was Apollo 8. On this mission, astronauts orbited the moon but did not land. On Apollo 9, the crew tested the Apollo moon lander by flying it in Earth orbit without landing. On Apollo 10, the Saturn V launched the lunar lander to the moon. The crew tested the lander in space but did not land it on the moon. In 1969, Apollo 11 was the first mission to land astronauts on the moon. Saturn V rockets also made it possible for astronauts to land on the moon on Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17. On Apollo 13, the Saturn V lifted the crew into space, but a problem prevented them from being able to land on the moon. That problem was not with the Saturn V, but with the Apollo spacecraft. The last Saturn V was launched in 1973, without a crew. It was used to launch the Skylab space station into Earth orbit.
How Did the Saturn V Work?
The Saturn V that launched the Skylab space station only had two stages. The Saturn V rockets used for the Apollo missions had three stages. Each stage would burn its engines until it was out of fuel and would then separate from the rocket. The engines on the next stage would fire, and the rocket would continue into space. The first stage had the most powerful engines, since it had the challenging task of lifting the fully fueled rocket off the ground. The first stage lifted the rocket to an altitude of about 68 kilometers (42 miles). The second stage carried it from there almost into orbit. The third stage placed the Apollo spacecraft into Earth orbit and pushed it toward the moon. The first two stages fell into the ocean after separation. The third stage either stayed in space or hit the moon.
Wikipedia
Saturn V was an American human-rated super heavy-lift launch vehicle used by NASA between 1967 and 1973.
A three-stage, liquid-fueled rocket, the Saturn V was developed under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon and was later used to launch Skylab, the first American space station.
As of 2021, the Saturn V remains the only launch vehicle to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit, as well as the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful (highest total impulse) rocket ever brought to operational status. It holds records for the heaviest payload launched and largest payload capacity to low Earth orbit (LEO) of 310,000 lb (140,000 kg), which included the third stage and unburned propellant needed to send the Apollo command and service module and Lunar Module to the Moon.
As 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.
A total of 15 flight-capable vehicles were built, plus three for ground testing. Thirteen were launched from Kennedy Space Center with no loss of crew or payload. A total of 24 astronauts were launched to the Moon from December 1968 through December 1972.