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3 A Brief History of Space Flight
The Saturn family of launch vehicles was applied to the Apollo Program. As early
as 1957, the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) in the city of Huntsville,
Alabama, under the technical direction of Wernher von Braun, was already working
on a new large launch vehicle, Saturn rocket. In July 1960, the Department of Defense
transferred the ABMA and its large booster project to the NASA. This formed the
basis for the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, where von Braun served as the
first director until his transfer to the NASA Headquarters in 1970. The Saturn family
of launch vehicles was mainly composed of the Saturn I, Saturn IB and Saturn V.
The Saturn I was used for two kinds of missions, known as Block-1 and Block-2, of
which several of the Block-2 missions orbited Apollo boilerplate payload. The Saturn
I for the Block-2 was a two-stage rocket, with a height of 57.3 m and a lift-off thrust
of 681,960 kgf. Subsequently, the design of improving the Saturn I evolved into the
Saturn IB for the flight tests of Apollo’s command and service module and lunar
module. The Saturn IB was also a two-stage rocket, with a height of 68.63 m and a
lift-off thrust of 743,730 kgf. Finally, a type of Heavy Lift Vehicle, the Saturn V was
successfully developed at the NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in 1967, to send
human to the Moon. All of the Saturn V rockets were almost the three-stage ones
except one two-stage rocket used in a flight test. The first stage of the Saturn V, also
called S-IC, had five F-1 engines with liquid oxygen and kerosene as propellants, all
of which could produce the lift-off thrust of 3,458,810 kgf to push the entire vehicle
assembly more than 58 km vertically at a speed of 2.752 km/s; the second stage,
called S-II, had five J-2 engines that could together produce a thrust of 510,637 kgf,
and after jettisoning the S-I, the rocket reached an altitude of 162.5 km at a velocity
of 6.932 km/s; the third stage, called S-IVB, had a single J-2 engine that could
produce 120,128 kgf, eventually to put the Apollo spacecraft into the Low Earth
Orbit (LEO). Once into the orbit, the third stage engine powered down temporarily.
When the spacecraft achieved the proper alignment after a few rotations around the
Earth, the engine would reignite. The resulting thrust guided the Apollo spacecraft
into the trajectory flying to the Moon. After the second ignition, the S-IVB was
separated from the spacecraft. The entire Saturn V rocket including the escape tower
stood 110.6 m tall, with a lift-off weight of 2945.95 metric tons and a thrust-weight
ratio of 1.18, whose launch capacity was 118 metric tons for the LEO and 47 metric
tons for the orbit around the Moon. There were a total of 32 launches of the Saturn
rockets between 1961 and 1975, including 10 Saturn I rockets, 9 Saturn IB rockets,
12 three-stage Saturn V rockets and 1 two-stage Saturn V rocket. Although some
flights experienced significant problems, no Saturn rocket failed catastrophically in
flight. The Saturn rockets were used in support of the Apollo lunar missions, the
launch of the Skylab space station and ferrying crews to and from the Skylab, and to
launch the American half of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
The arguments on the manned landing on the Moon lasted for nearly three years
at the NASA, and at first there were four schemes put forward in technical feasibility.
The first scheme was the rendezvous and docking in the lunar orbit. The LM was
separated from the CSM in the lunar orbit, and then descended and landed softly on
the surface of the Moon; after completing the tasks of investigating the Moon, the
ascent stage of the LM blasted off the descent stage that was abandoned on the lunar
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
The Saturn family of launch vehicles was applied to the Apollo Program. As early
as 1957, the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) in the city of Huntsville,
Alabama, under the technical direction of Wernher von Braun, was already working
on a new large launch vehicle, Saturn rocket. In July 1960, the Department of Defense
transferred the ABMA and its large booster project to the NASA. This formed the
basis for the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, where von Braun served as the
first director until his transfer to the NASA Headquarters in 1970. The Saturn family
of launch vehicles was mainly composed of the Saturn I, Saturn IB and Saturn V.
The Saturn I was used for two kinds of missions, known as Block-1 and Block-2, of
which several of the Block-2 missions orbited Apollo boilerplate payload. The Saturn
I for the Block-2 was a two-stage rocket, with a height of 57.3 m and a lift-off thrust
of 681,960 kgf. Subsequently, the design of improving the Saturn I evolved into the
Saturn IB for the flight tests of Apollo’s command and service module and lunar
module. The Saturn IB was also a two-stage rocket, with a height of 68.63 m and a
lift-off thrust of 743,730 kgf. Finally, a type of Heavy Lift Vehicle, the Saturn V was
successfully developed at the NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in 1967, to send
human to the Moon. All of the Saturn V rockets were almost the three-stage ones
except one two-stage rocket used in a flight test. The first stage of the Saturn V, also
called S-IC, had five F-1 engines with liquid oxygen and kerosene as propellants, all
of which could produce the lift-off thrust of 3,458,810 kgf to push the entire vehicle
assembly more than 58 km vertically at a speed of 2.752 km/s; the second stage,
called S-II, had five J-2 engines that could together produce a thrust of 510,637 kgf,
and after jettisoning the S-I, the rocket reached an altitude of 162.5 km at a velocity
of 6.932 km/s; the third stage, called S-IVB, had a single J-2 engine that could
produce 120,128 kgf, eventually to put the Apollo spacecraft into the Low Earth
Orbit (LEO). Once into the orbit, the third stage engine powered down temporarily.
When the spacecraft achieved the proper alignment after a few rotations around the
Earth, the engine would reignite. The resulting thrust guided the Apollo spacecraft
into the trajectory flying to the Moon. After the second ignition, the S-IVB was
separated from the spacecraft. The entire Saturn V rocket including the escape tower
stood 110.6 m tall, with a lift-off weight of 2945.95 metric tons and a thrust-weight
ratio of 1.18, whose launch capacity was 118 metric tons for the LEO and 47 metric
tons for the orbit around the Moon. There were a total of 32 launches of the Saturn
rockets between 1961 and 1975, including 10 Saturn I rockets, 9 Saturn IB rockets,
12 three-stage Saturn V rockets and 1 two-stage Saturn V rocket. Although some
flights experienced significant problems, no Saturn rocket failed catastrophically in
flight. The Saturn rockets were used in support of the Apollo lunar missions, the
launch of the Skylab space station and ferrying crews to and from the Skylab, and to
launch the American half of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
The arguments on the manned landing on the Moon lasted for nearly three years
at the NASA, and at first there were four schemes put forward in technical feasibility.
The first scheme was the rendezvous and docking in the lunar orbit. The LM was
separated from the CSM in the lunar orbit, and then descended and landed softly on
the surface of the Moon; after completing the tasks of investigating the Moon, the
ascent stage of the LM blasted off the descent stage that was abandoned on the lunar