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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 0235.PDF
FLIGHT International. 6 February 1969 209 Early in I960 (with manned Moon flights on the horizon), the Saturn programme was given the highest national priority and a ten-vehicle R&D programme was approved. The first Saturn I was flown on October 27. 1961. During 1961 and 1962 there existed considerable controversy on the best way of accomplishing the lunar mission. Although the use of a Saturn I for the manned lunar landing was theoretically possible, six vehicles would have been needed to ferry into low-Earth orbit the sub-assemblies from which the spacecraft could be built. No space rendezvous or docking had taken place at that time, and the solution was discarded as being too expensive and advanced. Two other possibilities existed: the direct method, in which a single vehicle (weighing an estimated 5,000 tons and still using conventional fuels) would make the round trip to the Moon. This rocket, designated Nova, would have been about 40 times as heavy as any vehicle then in use in the United States and this solution was also discarded as being too "far out." The second, the technique finally adopted, known as LOR (lunar orbit rendezvous), called for one rendezvous in orbit around the Moon, and had the attraction of needing a single launch vehicle weighing about 3,000 tons—well below the vehicle size required by the Nova mission. The Saturn V vehicle was therefore sized to this mission, and the decision to proceed with this rocket was made in January 1962. The Saturn I vehicle had cluster of eight H-l engines totalling 1,504,0001b thrust in the first stage and six RL-10 lox/liquid hydrogen engines of 90,0001b in the second stage. Seven vehicles were used for R&D flights, the last three of the ten being employed for flying the three Pegasus meteoroid- detection spacecraft. Realising the need for a vehicle capable of flying Apollo development hardware heavier than that which could be orbited by Saturn I, and before Saturn V could be made available, NASA initiated a programme for an Uprated Saturn I. This vehicle was considerably larger than Saturn I, had a total first-stage thrust of 1.61b million, and a single J-2 engine of 200,0001b thrust in the second stage. The first of 12 Saturn IBs, as the vehicles came to be called, flew in February 1966. Recurring problems with this rocket delayed its introduction and only four unmanned flights and one manned miission (the outstandingly successful Earth-orbit Apollo 7, launched on October 11 last year) were completed before Saturn V became operational. This vehicle, the largest rocket in the American inventory, has flown two unmanned missions—Apollo 4 on November 9, 1967 (the first flight), and Apollo 6 on April 4 last year. Its first manned mission was Apollo 8, the highly successful ten-Moon-orbit flight of December 21 last year. In parallel with the development of launch vehicles was the increasing knowledge of how to maintain man in space. On May 5, 1961 (less than three weeks before President Kennedy's statement to Congress) Alan Shepard made America's first manned sub-orbital flight in Mercury 7. The Mercury programme was initiated on December 8, 1958, with the object of developing the minimum manned spacecraft. While Mercury was not, therefore, designed specifically in support of the Apollo programme, almost every aspect of the one-man vehicle was relevant to the lunar mission. Two sub-orbital and four orbital Mercury flights were made. To further develop the techniques necessary for the lunar mission it was announced in December, 1961, that a more advanced programme, known as Gemini, would be imple mented. The main purpose of Gemini was to enable more ambitious manned space flights, including rendezvous and docking manoeuvres, to be made, and to provide an environ ment for two astronauts for a period of two weeks. The first flight was made on March 23, 1965. Gemini astronauts made, in all, ten rendezvous manoeuvres with other orbiting spacecraft, using seven different modes. Nine dockings were achieved with Agena target vehicles, and over I2hr of extra vehicular activity were accumulated. Ten Gemini missions were flown, the last (GT-12) on November II, 1966. Coming right up to date now, four further Apollo flights are scheduled for this year, one at least of which will be to land astronauts on the Moon. Apollo 9, to be flown this month, will test the lunar module in Earth orbit for the first time in a manned flight. Apollo 10 is scheduled for April/May, and will also be devoted to tests of the lunar module leading to its flight qualification. Apollo II, tenta tively planned for July, is the first of two possible landing flights. If Apollo 1 I is unsuccessful, Apollo 12—a contingency flight—could take place about September. 2-THE VEHICLE The Apollo/Saturn V vehicle in the final, or lunar-landing configuration, consists of eight basic units. These are: S-IC first stage; S-Il second stage; S-IVB third stage; instrument unit; the LM (the lunar module, itself consisting of two units: the ascent and descent stages); the SM (service module), the CM (command module, attached to the top of the service module) and the LES (launch escape tower). For the purpose of description under this heading, the vehicle consists of the three launch stages, the instrument unit, and the LES. The spacecraft, for the same purpose, consists of the lunar module, the service module and the command module, and is described under the appropriate heading. The S-IC first stage is made by Boeing, and consists of a vertical grouping of five cylindrical major components and Assembly of a vehicle as complex as Saturn V is a lengthy business and would engage a launch pad for several months. To avoid this the rocket is assembled at Cape Kennedy in the VA& (vehicle assembly building, not shown) which can accommodate up to four Saturns. The complete rocket is then transported by means of this tracked crawler vehicle, from the VAB to Launch Complex 39 (a distance of three miles) at a speed of 1.5 m.p.h.
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