Talk:Saturn V

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Isn't there an error in the fact sheet? Did maiden flight occur on november 6th or 9th? See text or Apollo 4 article.

Contents 1 Engine-out capability 2 Rewrite 3 Apollo abort modes 4 Contradictory LEO Lift Capability 5 Reduce passive voice 6 Rocket and Rhea (my previous move/disamb. changes) 7 References to this article 8 Height. 9 Revisions on Saturn V size/thrust/payload 10 N1 info 11 Seismic effect of the saturn V 12 Ambiguities 13 Photo caption in error? 14 A large rocket retired 15 Caption in Max Q article 16 Template:Saturn V infobox at WP:TFD

[edit] Engine-out capability

Some of the material on the Falcon V states that the Saturn V was the only other rocket to have engine-out capability, which prevented disasters on two of its launches. Can anyone confirm this from another source, and perhaps find out which launches they occurred on? --NeuronExMachina 06:41, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This page states: "During the second stage bum, two of the five J-2 engines shut down prematurely. To the surprise and delight of NASA engineers, the vehicle didn't lose control." Haven't been able to find more info yet, though. --NeuronExMachina 06:46, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Here is the offical report on the Apollo 13 Saturn V launch Saturn V Launch Vehicle Flight Evaluation Report AS-508 Apollo 13 Mission (PDF Format). Page 84 (pdf page 84) describes the engine shutdowns.Rusty 20:09, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Apollo 6 also had premature shutdown of some of its second stage engines. Here is the offical report of the Apollo 6 launch. [http://klabs.org/history/history_docs/jsc_t/apollo_06_saturn_v.pdf

Saturn V Launch Vehicle Flight Evaluation Report AS-502 Apollo 6 Mission (PDF Format)]. Info about the engine shutdown starts on page 127 (pdf page 127). Rusty 20:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As mentioned, the Saturn V had a number of early engine-outs before the 'pogo' problems were solved. However, I'd disagree with the original claim that it was the only other rocket to have an engine-out capability. At a minimum, the N-1 control system was designed to automatically shut down opposing rocket engines if one failed, and theoretically it could still reach orbit provided it didn't lose too many. Of course in reality it blew up every time it lost an engine, but that was because it had more serious problems than engines cutting out. MarkGrant

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I made some rearrangements and added more text. Hope you like it - I'd like to get this back to the featured article candidates some day. Zaha 21:33, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Okay this change has been reverted. Although I think that some of the material added and changed was not perfect, a full revert was not really the answer. --enceladus 04:15, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think we should add Zaha's edits to a temp page and review them more carefully. -Joseph (Talk) 04:28, 2004 Oct 7 (UTC)

Fine by me. What I was trying to achieve with the edit was mainly the reorganization of the text. Almost all of the old material is still there. I felt that it suffered from redundancy from many small edits (for example the Nova was discussed in two separate places). I tried to make the structure a bit more coherent. I started with a "background" section like before but removed some parts which really weren't about the history of the rocket. I created the "technology" section to gather one section for the scattered information about the technology of the rocket (using the "stages" section as a subsection and copying some information from the separate engine and stage pages, mostly stubs, to this page). The N-1 definitely should be mentioned in a moon rocket article. The lunar launch part I left much as it was, with the added astronaut comments (a typical launch timeline). Finally, the "all launches" part looked rather ugly with just a picture, so I merged it with "Saturn V vehicles and launches". Hopefully the people who actively edit this article will bother to actually compare the versions. My edit is by no means perfect, but the total revert by GeneralPatton is overkill (especially as he never contributed to the article). Zaha 15:03, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

Finally got around to taking Zaha edit and doing some work on it. You can find it at Enceladus. What I down is rewritten the stage section and annoted the transcript part of the page as well as moving some stuff around. I used Zaha's edit as the basis so it doesn't contain any of the changes made since to the page. You're all welcome to come and look and edit it. --enceladus 04:36, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Okay no-one made any changes to my temp page, so I decided to make it the current Saturn V page --enceladus 05:38, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I looked at your temp page earlier (too bad I had too little time to do a thorough edit) and most of the changes and additions to my version were excellent, as is with the current version - however there are a few things I'd like to point out. Firstly, there are some obvious spelling errors and a in some places text which is hard to understand. Secondly, the current text is a mix of past and present tense. We must stick on either, not both. I'd suggest using past tense with Saturn V and other historical rockets, and present tense with existing things such as the Space Shuttle. I won't make any changes immediately though - I'll wait for a few days for discussion here before editing myself. Zaha 22:30, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Went through and fixed my tense issues and any spelling mistakes that I saw (ie seperate instead of separate - I always seem to have issues with that word). I've also tried to use American spellings even though I'm from New Zealand. What sentences did you find confusing? And remember to be bold about editing.--enceladus 02:07, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I revised the current text, best way to see the changes is a version comparison. Also two larger changes: 1)thought it fair to mention Ariane 5 (European space pride, heh-heh) along with Titan IV 2)as far as I know Apollo 13 only had one engine failure (two would have been a major problem as was with Apollo 6 where S-II (IIRC) even flew backwards for some time and the computer miraculously corrected). I refer to the engine as the center engine (which is the same as engine 5). I also put a possible alternative meaning to the lead section. This is growing to a fairly large article, so perhaps we shouldn't expand it much further (I recommend keeping abort modes in a separate one). Zaha 14:55, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Moved the alternate meaning to the top as is the style for such disambiguations. You are right abuot there only being one engine out on Apollo 13 - got confused reading multiple sources. As for Apollo6 I do remember reading about it flying backwards so I found this at SP-4223 "Before This Decade Is Out..."

Every team had those kinds of experiences. The next mission [Apollo 6] was one that was really a solid test of the Saturn launch vehicle where we lost two engines on one side during powered flight during launch, and the Saturn's not supposed to fly. It's supposed to basically start spinning, lose control, but this Saturn didn't. And when you lose two engines one size, we go through it, we use a term "chi freeze" which means we actually hold the attitude we're in. Well, this kept the booster going essentially straight up.

At the time that we now finish first-stage burn-out, the booster recognized it was too high and too slow, so now it takes all of the five engines in the next stage and starts driving back down towards the ground. Okay. Then the guidance realizes it's got the right velocity but the wrong altitude, so this thing keeps turning around on it.

This rocket that we're getting ready to launch people to the Moon on goes into orbit thrusting backwards. In the meantime, it's throwing all these wifferdils all over the plot boards, and the team, by all rights, they should have called an abort, but since the engines were running, they were just watching this thing keep going.

--enceladus 20:34, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Apollo abort modes

I created this page a couple of days ago and was wondering if people feel that this should be left as a separate page or integrated into the Saturn V page. Basically it just goes through the various modes that existed for aborting the mission during the launch phase--enceladus 02:07, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Contradictory LEO Lift Capability

I don't seem to be able to find the definitive figure during my short lunch-hour here @ work, but there is some contradictory text in the article. First the text claims that the S-V had a LEO payload capacity of 118,000kg, then in the "Comparisons" section it lists the LEO capability at 127,000kg.

Could the 127,000kg figure be for the Skylab OWS weight? The SA-513 vehicle obviously threw that into orbit, but can you properly include that figure with the Apollo-configured Saturns when they are such different launch vehicles? Justinwigg 04:01, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

According to Apollo by the Numbers, on average the mass of the spacecraft for a lunar mission was 110,000kg plus the instrument unit of about 4500 kg we have a total weight of 114500 kg. Of course for the Apollo flights we have to remember that the rocket also launched the S-IVB into orbit with fuel on board for the TLI burn.

As for the Skylab mass, it seems to have had an orbital mass of about 75,000 kg. The problem is that on the internet, in books etc, you will come up with 20 different values for everything to do with mass of rockets and spacecrafts.

I've changed all the references to 118,000 kg for the moment just for some consistency. Evil Monkey → Talk 04:18, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

LEO payload is complicated. Some references give the Saturn V LEO payload as 285,000 lbs. However this is the combined mass of the partially fuelled S-IVB and Apollo vehicles. In fact the payload capacity of the Saturn V was uprated starting with SA-504 (Apollo 9), then again uprated starting with Apollo 15, due due to weight reduction and F-1 performance improvements. The maximum total LEO payload achieved was probably Apollo 15. It is payload in LEO, but it's not really all discretionary payload. IOW it's mass in orbit, not really payload in orbit. However Apollo 15 apparently put about 311,176 lbm, or 141,148 kg mass into LEO, which is pretty big. In theory if you partially fueled the S-IVB (no need for TLI fuel just for LEO), it could put a 305,000 lb (138,000 kg) useful payload into LEO. I've seen statements the S-IVB wasn't structually capable of that, but certainly the reinforcement needed would be minor. However 118,000 kg figure is probably an OK average number. Joema 23:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reduce passive voice

I hope nobody's psyche is warped by the past tense I applied to the sequence. It seemed strange to me to describe something that hasn't happened for 30 years in present tense. (Yes, I know that's practice on Current events and there's a fancy name for present tense refering to things of the past, but still... 30 years ago and it wasn't written shortly after the fact.) -- ke4roh 23:10, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This article is choc full of passive voice. Some of it is ok, as it would be awkward to use active voice everywhere (since we are talking about an inanimate object, after all), but a lot of it is unnecessary. I've already made a dozen or so changes. --P3d0 21:19, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rocket and Rhea (my previous move/disamb. changes)

Sorry about the Saturn V disamb/move changes, Evil Monkey. Last thing I want to do is p*** off a bunch of rocket scientists! I should have posted here in discussion before moving on that. Lesson learned. I had been creating entries for some of the other Saturn moons and this was the first case where the designation name was already in use. Was just going for some consistency but I agree with your comment about there being little chance for confusion in this case. However I would submit that this is worth considering in the future since the Rhea is perhaps as significant as the rocket. -fj∴Talk 20:53, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Rhea is as notable as the rocket but how many people are actually going to go to Saturn V expecting to see an article about the Moon? Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:37, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References to this article

FYI, I found some of the text of this article used (with attribution) here. --P3d0 12:38, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Height.

THere seems to be disagreement over height in feet. More sources (3/5) say 363ft, but many say 364. Comments? Rich Farmbrough 00:19, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

If that's the case, it's obvious enough to me that 363 ft would be the accurate, original measurement. That converts to 111 m, to the nearest m. Convering the conversion back, you end up at 364 ft instead. I'd say redo it, listing 363 ft (111 m) with the original first. Gene Nygaard 02:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The 'Saturn V News Reference' has an addendum stating that 'additional refinement of data has indicated that the overall height of the Saturn V should be 363 feet, not 364 as stated in the body of the publication'. Coming direct from NASA and the main Apollo contractors I'd guess that's a fairly definitive source. MarkGrant

[edit] Revisions on Saturn V size/thrust/payload

I made several changes in the "comparisons" section to correct inaccurate statements about the Saturn V. There's a lot of wrong information floating around about the space shuttle liftoff thrust, which affects Saturn V comparisons. This stems from inconsistent descriptions of SRB liftoff thrust. Often this is stated as 3.3 million lbs/each, however this is vacuum thrust. The key number is sea-level liftoff thrust, which is about 2.8 million lbs. Sometimes you'll see an even lower number, which is average thrust.

It's actually difficult to compare shuttle thrust to Saturn V thrust. Excluding altitude variations, the Saturn V engines were not throttleable -- they produce the same thrust from liftoff to shutdown. By comparison the shuttle SRB thrust (which produce over 80% of the liftoff thrust) is constantly varying. Do you compare peak to peak, average to average, or liftoff to liftoff? Do you compare sea level or vacuum thrust? In general most comparisons are for instantaneous sea level liftoff thrust, so that is about (2.8 million lbs * 2) + (393,000 * 3) = 6.779 million lbs, for SRB plus SSME 104% liftoff thrust. For the Saturn V, it's 1.5298 million lbs * 5 = 7.649 million lbs.

Some of the other comparisons were to rockets which have never flown, so I clarified this.

Let me know if any questions or concerns. Joema 21:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] N1 info

The extensive N1 info in the "comparisons" section is good, but too much detail and history for purposes of simple comparison. The developmental history and details on launch failures should probably be moved to the N1 article. Joema 02:58, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seismic effect of the saturn V

I've heard that earthquake detectors could detect a Sat V launch from 1000 miles away. Can this be confirmed or denied? Linguofreak 03:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguities

"... a payload capacity of 118,00 kg to LEO"

Do you mean 11,800 kg, 118,000 kg, 118 kg (surely not) or what?

I mean 118,000 kg, mistyped, corrected it.

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This article contains a link to TLI, which is a redirect to Transport Layer Interface; I doubt this is correct, but I don't know what TLI is in this context, so someone else will have to fix it. — Lady Lysine Ikinsile 10:21, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

The "TLI" the Saturn V article refers to is "Trans-Lunar Injection", the Saturn V third stage (SIV-B) rocket firing that takes the Apollo spacecraft out of low earth orbit and sends it toward the moon.

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I think it would be appropriate to mention Arthur Rudolph on this page, but I'm not sure how to work him in. Ideas? -- ke4roh 15:08, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Maybe you could just mention his name and title as part of Wernher von Braun's team that developed the Saturn V. Wernher von Braun is already mentioned at the beginning of the article. More detailed info about him is in the article bearing his name. Rusty 22:09, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I tried that on for size, though I didn't particularly want to detract from Von Braun. -- ke4roh 23:10, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes of course it's OK to mention Rudolph. He was the program manager for the Saturn V, ultimately reponsible for the entire program. Rudolph directed the Saturn V program, not Von Braun (who was Rudolph's boss and involved in many things besides Saturn). Joema 00:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

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At the beginning of the technology section, it says the Saturn V is "over 363 feet (110.6 m) high." However, in the same paragraph it says "It gives a good idea of the scale of Saturn V to note that, at 364 feet, it is just one foot shorter than St Paul's Cathedral in London." Is it 363 feet or 364? Either way, it would be more logical to have the correct number both times. Also, "it gives a good idea of the scale"... that's oddly written and isn't really NPOV. I shall change it.

363 (from the Saturn V News Reference), see the discussion above. Mark Grant 17:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photo caption in error?

The photo of the Saturn V ascending past the U.S. flag may contain an error in the caption. The photo shows a shock wave around the Saturn V, and says that this happens at MaxQ when the rocket is 1 min, 20 seconds into the flight. However, in the photo the Saturn V seems very close to the ground -- it can't be more than about 10 seconds into the flight. I suspect the shock wave is from the rocket breaking the sound barrier. Could someone look into this and correct the impression that the photo shows the rocket 80 seconds after liftoff? --Pmurph5 13:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The size of the flag makes this photo seem closer to the ground that it is. I believe it is an extreme zoom that also captures the flag. Note that it takes about 12 seconds for the Saturn V to clear the tower. When Max Q happens, the Saturn V is only about 44,000 feet off the ground, and it would certainly be possible to get a picture like this. Here's a picture of the Shuttle at Max Q [1]. The Shuttle does this at about 35,000 feet. Cjosefy 15:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Cjosefy, that's not the Shuttle at Max-Q. That's in fact the moment of achieving Mach 1 (Mach 1 and Max-Q are not to be confused). You can see a subtle vapor disk intersecting the stack in addition to more prominent condensation sticking to various parts of the stack. That disc is the effect of the mach shock wave. Max-Q occurs sometime (several to several tens of seconds) after Mach 1, depending on various factors such as acceleration and flight profile. This subtle Mach 1 disc is very short-lived, less than a second when viewed in footage and is hard to catch in still photography. The other, more prominent condensation sticks around for much longer, before and after Mach 1. The Saturn V shot doesn't exactly show a shock wave either as much as this "ordinary" condensation cloud resulting from a drop in pressure. From the footage of Apollo 11, this condensation cloud did seem to form some time after T+1 min, after the vehicle flew through a cloud deck. So the image is very likely taken a while after liftoff, but very unlikely at Max-Q. The Max-Q passage occurs somewhat higher up where the engine exhaust spreads out more due to lower atmospheric pressure. This image shows the engine exhaust is narrowly collimated, the vehicle is probably less than 5 miles in altitude. To resume, the image shows neither supersonic passage nor Max-Q. I'd suggest changing the caption in order to avoid confusion. I could go on even further saying that particular image looks suspiciously like a double exposure -- a flag shot and a launch shot, but I'll stop for now. Ugo 11:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Double exposure - with NASA it is possible (for example this launch shot of Apollo 8). Then again, telephoto lens can do fun things like this Apollo 7 launch photo taken from a C-135 aircraft, flying at more than 35,000 feet. A quick browse of the newsgroups finds some people claiming that it is a composite, based on how it would be very hard to get the flag AND Saturn V in shot together at the height the rocket would have been by the time it forms the condensation cloud. Evil Monkey - Hello 20:31, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A large rocket retired

The largest rocket is retired. Which is the largest active rocket? Jer10 95 06:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

That's a complicated question. "Largest" can mean tallest, heaviest, or (more loosely) greater payload or most powerful (in takeoff thrust). They can further be classified as manned or unmanned. If by "largest" you mean heaviest or most powerful ACTIVE booster, it's probably the U.S. Space shuttle, at 4.47 million lbs (2.029 million kg), and liftoff thrust of about 6.76 million lbs force (30.1 MN). From a height standpoint the Ariane 5 is about 1.5 feet taller. The shuttle has I think the largest payload to Low Earth orbit or current ACTIVE boosters at about 50,000 lbs (22,679 kg). The Ariane 5's LEO capacity is about 35,000 lbs (16,000 kg). The Ariane 5 may have a greater payload capacity to Geosynchronous orbit, as the shuttle is limited by the Inertial Upper Stage payload capacity and weight. However I think the Delta IV rocket Heavy has slightly greater payload capacity to Geostationary transfer orbit than the Ariane 5 ECA, at 10,843 kg vs 10,500 kg. From a launch mass standpoint, I think the Ariene 5 and Delta IV Heavy are about the same at 1.6 million lbs 737,000 kg.

Yet another viewpoint is although the shuttle is active, it's no longer used for launching satellite payloads (just ISS visits and one Hubble mission), so by that definition it's not active as a satellite-launching vehicle. Just an example of how there are many ways to view this. Here is one chart, but note it includes old (non-active) and current boosters: [2]. I'm sure someone else can comment with better details. Joema 15:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Caption in Max Q article

While leaving editing this to those with more knowledge of the subject than me, I would point out that the photo caption on the same picture as the one shown here claims to show the Saturn V at Max Q, in the article Max Q. So any work to change the caption to another cause will have repercussions there. Britmax 12:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, that should be changed as well. Strictly speaking, Max-Q doesn't have anything in common with "shock waves" or condensation clouds as is often portrayed. As the article says, it's merely the point where dynamic pressure of the airflow is the greatest. A shock wave is created the minute the vehicle passes Mach 1 and persists the whole time, but it's invisible. Only a slight vapor disc (such as the above Shuttle image) can sometimes be visible immediately near Mach 1 as a consequence of the shock wave. It by no means outlines the shock which is roughly conical. Condensation on the other hand occurs where local air flow goes through rapid pressure changes that favor condensation of water droplets. None of the two phenomena can be attributed to Max-Q alone. For all practical purposes, nothing visible happens at Max-Q and that Saturn V image should be removed from the article as well. The Space Shuttle image in the above section could be used for an illustration on supersonic transition for example, but that's about it. Ugo 14:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I am the person who wrote the caption, or at least didn't check someone's fact when they added it as being Max-Q but apologise anyway. I have found that the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal here (image KSC-69PC-397, near the bottom of the section) caption the image as

Apollo 11 after pitchover. Note the condensation cloud that has formed in air expanding aft of the first-stage/second-stage transition

Evil Monkey - Hello 20:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Saturn V infobox at WP:TFD

Template:Saturn V infobox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | Chess | E-mail} 20:13, 18 August 2006 (UTC)