Loved the Saturn V lift-offs – but where were I, II, III and IV?
Ialways enjoy documentaries about NASA and the Apollo missions to the moon.
I particularly love to see the lift-off of the missions, as the mighty Saturn V rockets take the brave astronauts on their journey.
But were there Saturn I, II, III and IV rockets before that? – G.
There were. The Saturn I was the United States’ first heavy-lift dedicated space launcher, a rocket designed specifically to launch large payloads into low Earth orbit.
It made its first flight on October 27, 1961, and made a total of 10 successful launches.
There were Saturn II, III and IV rockets, but they were never launched into space.
Instead, they were used by engineers to test and develop the craft that would become the mighty Saturn V. There were 13 launches of the Saturn V, and six of these took 12 men to the moon.
Its first flight was on November 9, 1957, from the Cape Canaveral launch pad in Florida.
It towered 110 metres high and weighed 2.8 million kg, fully loaded.
It had 7.5 million pounds of thrust and could carry 118,000 kg into Earth orbit.
Twelve minutes after lift-off, it reached 185 km (115 m) high and a speed of 28,157 km/h (17,500 mph) to enter Earth orbit.
It burned liquid oxygen and kerosene at a rate of 15 tons per second during launch – which means it burned more fuel in one second than Charles Lindbergh used in his historic flight across the Atlantic in 1927, just 30 years earlier.