The first Saturn-5 rocket: review, characteristics and interesting facts

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Based on the developments of the first decade of the 21st century, the Saturn-5 rocket (American-made) is the most powerful among its brethren. Its three-stage structure was designed in the sixties of the last century and was intended to deliver a person to the lunar surface. All the necessary ships, which were entrusted with the mission of exploring the natural satellite of our planet, were to be attached to it.

According to the Apollo program, the lunar module was attached to the rocket, placed inside its adapter, and the body of the orbiter was attached to it. Such a single-launch scheme performed two things at once. True, there was also a two-stage model, which was used only once during the launch of the very first space station of the United States of America into orbit - Skylab.

Lunar program: myth or truth?

It's been almost half a century,but talk of a fabricated lunar program continues unabated. Someone is sure that sending astronauts to the moon using the Saturn-5 rocket is a hoax. For such people, any evidence of the great achievements of the Americans is alien, and, according to them, the videos were made without flying outside the planet Earth.

Sometimes it is rumored that the beautifully constructed Saturn is too perfect to be real. Even if the Saturn program did take place, why didn't the Americans continue it, citing the loss of all design documentation for the Saturn-5 rocket, and began to produce shuttles costing many times more? Why was it necessary to start the entire workflow of developing a similar rocket from scratch? And how could it be possible to lose the technological map for the production of the Saturn-5 rocket? After all, this is not a grain of sand on a sandy beach.

In general, the Saturn-5 rocket is the first of its kind, designed not only to deliver astronauts to the Moon, but also to successfully return them home. Plus, the landing with all the equipment, including the lunar module with two live passengers, had to be very smooth and soft, otherwise it would have been their last flight. Part of the mass was able to be separated by disconnecting the lunar module from the command ship, which, in turn, remained in lunar orbit and waited for the completion of all work.

The American rocket "Saturn-5" could lift and put into orbit up to 140tons of cargo. But, for example, the most used heavy rocket "Proton" can carry only 22 tons on its "body". Impressive difference, isn't it?

As you know, several Saturns were produced, and the last one launched the Skylab space station weighing 77 tons. It was so huge that if the reference point was lost inside, the astronaut hung in the air for several minutes, waiting for the wind from the ventilation system. Actually, only Mir, which consisted of several modules, broke this record. But it is the Saturn-5 rocket that is still the most ambitious project in the world and the most powerful space machine, a record that no other launch vehicle has yet been able to beat.

History of Saturn V

At the very beginning of its life, the ship faces difficulties in the form of a failed launch with the participation of an unmanned, poorly adjusted system. This was followed by a refusal to repeat the unmanned test, but everything ended with a "happy" ending, since from 1968 to 1973 there were successful launches of ten Apollo space programs and the above-mentioned Skylab space station. And then the Saturn-5 launch vehicle becomes a museum exhibit, and its production and further operation are completely stopped. This period continues to this day.

Interesting facts

The United States began developing the Saturn rocket back in 1962, and four years later the first testflight. More precisely, the test was completely failed, since the second stage of the rocket, set to be launched at a test site near St. Louis, simply exploded and shattered into pieces. According to historical records, the unmanned flight of the rocket was constantly delayed due to endless breakdowns and shortcomings, but in the fall of 1967, the Americans were still able to succeed. However, at the second test stage of the Apollo 6 program, the attempt of unmanned piloting failed again. Of the five available engines in the first stage, only three were put into operation, the engine in the third stage did not start at all, and after that the whole structure unexpectedly fell apart for everyone.

Despite this, ten days later an unprecedented decision was made to send the Saturn V launch vehicle without retesting to the Moon. After all, do not forget about the Cold War with the USSR and the arms race. Everyone was in a hurry and, even fearing irreparable tragic consequences, they still decided to conquer the Earth's natural satellite without a third test launch.

Above it was said about the mystical disappearance of the technical documentation and characteristics of the Saturn-5 rocket, but in fact the Americans refute this information and call it a bike. This story appeared back in 1996 in a scientific book about the history of the formation of astronautics. Simply put, the author reported in her lines that NASA simply lost the blueprints. But according to NASA employee Paul Shawcross, who held a position in the division forinternal inspection, the drawings really didn’t remain, but the experience and the engineering “brain” remained intact: all the data was placed in small pieces of photographic film - microfilm.

Specifications

What are the main technical characteristics of the Saturn-5 rocket? Let's start with the fact that its height reached 110 meters, and its diameter - ten, and with such parameters it could launch up to 150 tons of cargo into space, leaving it in near-Earth orbit.

In the classic version, it has three steps: in the first two, five engines each and in the third, one. The fuel for the first stage was in the form of RP-1 kerosene with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer, and for the second and third stages it was in the form of liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. The launch thrust for the engines of the Saturn-5 rocket was 3,500 tons.

Rocket design

The structural feature of the rocket is a transverse division into three stages, that is, each stage is superimposed on the previous one. Carrying tanks were present at all stages. The steps were connected by means of special adapters. The lower part was separated along with the body of the first stage, and the upper annular part was separated a couple of tens of seconds after the start of the second stage engines. The "cold scheme" of stage separation worked here, that is, until the previous one disappears, the engines on the next one will not be able to start.

In addition to the starting engines, there were brake solid propellant engines on the stepslaunch vehicle "Saturn-5". Its designer, Wernher von Braun, used them to endow the steps with the function of self-landing. Also in the compartment of the third stage there was an instrumental block in which the rocket was controlled.

Design of the first stage

The world-famous Boeing became its manufacturer. Of all three, it was the first step that was the highest, its length was 42.5 meters. Operating time - about 165 seconds. If we consider the stage from the bottom up, then in its design you can directly find the compartment itself with five engines, a fuel tank with kerosene, an inter-tank compartment, a tank with an oxidizer in the form of liquid oxygen and a front skirt.

In the engine compartment were the largest Saturn-V engines - F-1, the manufacturer of which was the American company Rocketdyne. The propulsion system itself consisted directly of the power structure, stabilizing units and thermal protection. One of the engines was fixed in the center in a fixed position, and the other four were suspended on gimbals. Also, fairings were installed on the side power plants in order to protect the engines from aerodynamic loads.

In the fuel compartment there were five pipes conducting the oxidizer to the main fuel, which was already supplied ready-made using ten pipelines to the engines. The skirt had the function of connecting the first and second steps. When the flights of the fourth and sixth Apollos were carried out,cameras were attached to the structure to monitor the operation of the power plant, stage separation and control of liquid oxygen.

Design of the second stage

Its manufacturer was the company, today part of the holding "Boeing" - North American. The length of the structure was a little more than 24 meters, and the operating time was four hundred seconds. The components of the second stage were divided into an upper adapter, fuel tanks, a compartment with J-2 engines, and a lower adapter connecting it to the first stage. The top adapter was equipped with four additional solid propellant engines, designed for the same braking as in the case of the first stage. They were launched after the separation of the third stage. The power plant compartment also had one central engine and four peripheral ones.

Third stage design

The third, almost eighteen-meter structure was made by McDonnel Douglas. Its purpose was to launch the orbiter and lower the lunar module to the surface of the moon. The third stage was produced in two series - 200 and 500. The latter had a solid advantage in an increased supply of helium in the event of a restart of the engine.

The third stage consisted of two adapters - upper and lower, a compartment with fuel and a power plant. The system that regulates the fuel supply to the engines is equipped with sensors that measure the fuel balance, they directly transmitted data to the on-board computer. themselvesthe motors could be used both in continuous mode and in pulse mode. By the way, the American space station Skylab was created on the basis of this third stage.

Tool block

All the electronic systems were housed in a tool box that was just under a meter high and about 6.6 meters in diameter. It is superimposed on the third step. Inside the ring there were blocks that controlled the launch of the rocket, its orientation in space, as well as flight along a given trajectory. There were also navigation and emergency system devices.

The control system was represented by an on-board computer and an inertial platform. The entire control unit had a temperature control and thermoregulation system. Absolutely the entire rocket was strewn with sensors that detect any malfunctions. They submitted the found data on the emergency state of one or another electronic object to the control panel in the astronauts' cabin.

Preparing for launch

The entire pre-flight check of the Saturn-5 rocket and the Apollo spacecraft was carried out by a special commission of five hundred people. Thousands of workers took part in the launch and training at Cape Canaveral. Vertical assembly was taking place at the Space Center, located five kilometers from the launch site.

Approximately ten weeks before departure, all parts of the rocket were transported to the launch site. Tracked vehicles were used for such heavy objects. When all parts of the rocket were connected together andall electrical appliances were connected, communications were checked, including the radio system - both onboard and ground.

Further, immobilized tests of missile control began, a flight simulation took place. We checked the operation of the spaceport and the mission control center in Houston. And the last test work was already carried out with direct refueling of the tanks until the period involving the launch of the first stage.

Start operations

The pre-launch time starts six days before the launch of the rocket into space. This is a standard procedure that was carried out with the Saturn-5. During this period, several pauses were carried out to avoid failures and subsequent delay of departure. The final countdown started 28 hours before launch.

Filling the first stage took twelve hours. Moreover, only kerosene was poured, and liquid oxygen was supplied to the tanks four hours before launch. Before refueling, all tanks went through a cooling procedure. The oxidizer was first supplied to the tanks of the second stage by forty percent, then to the tanks of the third by a hundred. Next, the containers of the second design were filled to the end, and only then did the oxidizer get into the first one. Thanks to such an interesting procedure, the workers were convinced that there was no leakage of oxygen from the tanks of the second stage. Total cryogenic fuel delivery time during refueling was 4.5 hours.

After preparing all the systems, the rocket was switched to automatic mode. Of the five engines of the first stage, the central fixed one was launched first, and only then the peripheral ones according to the opposite scheme. Next infor five seconds, the rocket was on hold, and then gently exited the holders that released it, deviating to the sides.

The computer, located in the instrumental unit, controlled the pitch and roll of the rocket. All pitch maneuvers ended at 31 seconds of flight, but the program continued to pulse until the first stage was completely disconnected.

Dynamic pressure started at the seventieth second. Peripheral engines worked until the end of the fuel in the tanks, and the middle one turned off another 131 seconds after takeoff in order to prevent large overloads on the missile body. The separation of the first stage took place at about 65 kilometers above the earth's surface, and the speed of the rocket by this moment was already 2.3 kilometers per second.

But separating, the stage did not immediately fall down. According to the design features, it continued to climb to a hundred kilometers and only then went into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean at a distance of 560 kilometers from the launch site.

The start of the engines of the second stage began a second after the first stage undocked. All five power plants were launched simultaneously, and after 23 seconds the second stage lower adapter was reset. After that, the crew took matters into their own hands using the on-board computer. The separation of the second stage took place at an altitude of 190 kilometers above the earth's surface, and work was transferred to the main engine. Astronauts were in charge of it. Andafter the launch of the spacecraft into lunar orbit, the third stage separated from the controlled module when the engine was turned off manually after eighty minutes. Thus, "Saturn-5" was able to deliver astronauts to the moon and allow the Americans to become the first conquerors of the Earth's natural satellite.