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S-V

Rocket stage

Summary

Rocket stage

Field	Value
name	S-V
propmass	13,604 kg
first	October 27, 1961
fail	0
success	4
launches	4
status	Retired
empty	1,996 kg
mass	15,600 kg
image	S-V Stage.jpg
diameter	3.05 m
height	9.14 m
rockets	Saturn I (stage 3)
country	United States
manufacturer	Convair
caption	S-V stage on top of the S-IV	last=March 28, 1963
name	S-V
engines	2 RL-10 engines
thrust	133.45 kN
SI	425 isp
burntime	425 s
fuel	LH2 / LOX
}}	derivatives	Centaur	family=Saturn

History

Convair Astronautics was awarded a contract to deliver the S-V stage for the Saturn I. The stage was intended to boost lift capacity for U.S. military launches in the 1960s. The S-V would ultimately fly as the third stage on early launches of the Saturn I. Convair delivered two S-V stages in February 1961 with one being flown on SA-1 attached to an also inert S-IV, the second was used for dynamic testing of the complete Saturn I before being later flown. In May 1961 NASA eliminated the requirement for all Saturn I launches to be flown with S-V's by flying in a two-stage only version. Despite this, the stage would fly four times in total. With the introduction of the Saturn IB and the needs of the military fulfilled on other launches, all further launches would be on either the Saturn IB or Saturn V, neither of which used the S-V. A version of this stage was also used on the Atlas-LV3C as the Centaur, modern derivatives of which are still flown today, making it the only Saturn rocket stage still currently operating.

Flight history

Ultimately, the S-V would go on to fly four times between 1961 and 1964. Each of which were flown on suborbital test flights of the Saturn I. Because of the suborbital nature of these flights, each S-V was filled with water to act as ballast, making the stage inert. The water was released in space twice for Project Highwater. Modern derivatives of the stage are still in use today on the Atlas V and the Vulcan Centaur.

Flight Number	Launch date	Notes
SA-1	October 27, 1961	First test suborbital flight. Apogee: 136.5 km. Inactive S-IV and S-V stages.
SA-2	April 25, 1962	Second suborbital test flight. 86,000 kg water released at apogee of 145 km. Inactive S-IV and S-V stages.
SA-3	November 16, 1962	Third suborbital test flight. 86,000 kg water released at apogee of 167 km. Inactive S-IV and S-V stages.
SA-4	March 28, 1963	Fourth suborbital test flight. Apogee: 129 km. Inactive S-IV and S-V stages.

References

FORCETOC

References

(15 May 1965). "Saturn Illustrated Chronology - Part 2".
"Saturn-1 (Block 1) (Saturn-I)".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

rocket-stages nasa-space-launch-vehicles

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