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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0103.PDF
ft 'HT International, 18 January 1962 Missiles and Spaceflight SATURN C-5 FOR LUNAR PROGRAMME advanced version of Saturn known as C-5 will be used by the LS National Aeronautics and Space Administration for manned orbital flights around the Moon and possibly for manned landings j on the lunar surface. This news, implying the cancellation of the i intermediate C-2, C-3 and C-4 versions of the vehicle, was an- | nounced by NASA last week. Saturn C-5 will be used both in two-stage and three-stage versions, I the former for Earth-orbital missions and the latter for "escape I missions" to the region of the Moon. First stage comprises five I Rocketdyne F-l engines each of 1.5m lb thrust; the second stage is made up of five Rocketdyne J-2 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen I engines each of 200,0001b thrust; and the third stage consists of a I single J-2 engine of 200,0001b thrust. The vehicle will be capable of I placing 100-110-ton pay loads in Earth orbit, and of launching I 40-50-ton payloads on escape missions. Height of the rocket is I quoted as about 270ft, and booster diameter 33ft. First flight of the Saturn C-5 is expected to take place from Cape : Canaveral in 1965, and as soon as possible thereafter the vehicle will be used to launch a three-man Apollo spacecraft into orbit I around the Moon. If orbital-rendezvous techniques prove feasible. I the C-5 will also be the vehicle employed in landing Apollo space craft on the lunar surface. The rendezvous technique, in which a spacecraft is placed in Earth orbit, connected in orbit to a further propulsion stage, and I launched from orbit towards the Moon, is illustrated in the three NASA diagrams (right). The Space Administration has not yet I announced whether this will in fact be the technique adopted, but is I believed to favour this method rather than a direct flight by a more- I powerful Nova-class vehicle. Illustrated at the foot of this page are the three spacecraft involved I in NASA's manned spaceflight programmes. First, the one-man I Mercury spacecraft of the type in which Lt-Col John Glenn is to Above right, typical rendezvous, docking and orbital-launch operations. for extended Earth-orbital flights and rendezvous tests) and circumlunar Below, approximately to scale, Mercury capsule, two-man Gemini spacecraft ersion of the three-man Apollo spacecraft
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