S-IC

The Apollo 10 Apollo 10 Apollo 10 was the fourth manned mission in the American Apollo space program. It was an F type mission—its purpose was to be a "dry run" for the Apollo 11 mission, testing all of the procedures and components of a Moon landing without actually landing on the Moon itself. The mission included the...  S-IC stage is hoisted in the VAB Vehicle Assembly Building The Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center was used to assemble and house American manned launch vehicles from 1968-2011. It is the fourth largest building in the world by volume...  for stacking
Fact sheet
Height	42 m (138 ft)
Diameter	10 m (33 ft)
Mass	2,280,000 kg (5,030,000 lb)
Engines	5 F-1 F-1 (rocket engine) The F-1 is a rocket engine developed by Rocketdyne and used in the Saturn V. Five F-1 engines were used in the S-IC first stage of each Saturn V, which served as the main launch vehicle in the Apollo program. The F-1 is still the most powerful single-chamber liquid-fueled rocket engine ever...  engines
Thrust	33,400 kN (7,500,000 lbf)
Burn time	150 s
Fuel	RP-1 RP-1 RP-1 is a highly refined form of kerosene outwardly similar to jet fuel, used as a rocket fuel. Although having a lower specific impulse than liquid hydrogen , RP-1 is cheaper, can be stored at room temperature, is far less of an explosive hazard and is far denser...  and liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen — abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries — is one of the physical forms of elemental oxygen.-Physical properties:...

The S-IC was the first stage

Multistage rocket

A multistage rocket is a rocket that usestwo or more stages, each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A tandem or serial stage is mounted on top of another stage; a parallel stage is attached alongside another stage. The result is effectively two or more rockets stacked on top of or...

 of the Saturn V

Saturn V

The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...

 rocket. The S-IC first stage was built by The Boeing

Boeing

The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...

 Company. Like the first stages of most rocket

Rocket

A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

s, most of its mass of over two thousand metric tonnes at launch was propellant, in this case RP-1

RP-1

RP-1 is a highly refined form of kerosene outwardly similar to jet fuel, used as a rocket fuel. Although having a lower specific impulse than liquid hydrogen , RP-1 is cheaper, can be stored at room temperature, is far less of an explosive hazard and is far denser...

 rocket fuel and liquid oxygen

Liquid oxygen

Liquid oxygen — abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries — is one of the physical forms of elemental oxygen.-Physical properties:...

 (LOX) oxidizer. It was 42 meters tall and 10 meters in diameter, and provided 33,000 kN of thrust to get the rocket through the first 61 kilometers of ascent. Of the five F-1 engines

F-1 (rocket engine)

The F-1 is a rocket engine developed by Rocketdyne and used in the Saturn V. Five F-1 engines were used in the S-IC first stage of each Saturn V, which served as the main launch vehicle in the Apollo program. The F-1 is still the most powerful single-chamber liquid-fueled rocket engine ever...

, one was fixed in the center, while the four on the outer ring could be hydraulically turned (gimbal

Gimbal

A gimbal is a pivoted support that allows the rotation of an object about a single axis. A set of two gimbals, one mounted on the other with pivot axes orthogonal, may be used to allow an object mounted on the innermost gimbal to remain immobile regardless of the motion of its support...

led) to control the rocket.

Manufacturing

The Boeing

Boeing

The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...

 Company was awarded the contract to manufacture the S-IC on December 15, 1961. By this time the general design of the stage had been decided on by the engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center

Marshall Space Flight Center

The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. The largest center of NASA, MSFC's first mission was developing the Saturn launch vehicles for the Apollo moon program...

 (MSFC). The main place of manufacture was the Michoud Assembly Facility

Michoud Assembly Facility

The Michoud Assembly Facility is an 832-acre site owned by NASA and located in New Orleans East, a large district within the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Organizationally, it is part of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center...

, New Orleans. Wind tunnel testing took place in Seattle and the machining of the tools needed to build the stages at Wichita

Wichita, Kansas

Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...

, Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

.

MSFC built the first three test stages (S-IC-T, the S-IC-S, and the S-IC-F) and the first two flight models (S-IC-1 and -2). They were built using tools produced in Wichita.

It took roughly 7 to 9 months to build the tanks and 14 months to complete a stage. The first stage built by Boeing was S-IC-D, a test model.

Components

The largest and heaviest portion of the S-IC was the thrust structure, weighing 21 metric tons. It was designed to support the thrust of the five engines and redistribute it evenly across the base of the rocket. There were four anchors which held down the rocket as it built thrust. These were among the largest aluminum forgings produced in the U.S. at the time, 4.3 meters long and 816 kilograms in weight. The four stabilising fins withstood a temperature of 1100 °C.

Above the thrust structure was the fuel tank, containing 770,000 liters of RP-1 fuel. The tank itself had a mass of 11 metric tons dry and could release 7300 liters per second. Nitrogen

Nitrogen

Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...

 was bubbled through the tank before launch to keep the fuel mixed. During flight the fuel was pressurized using helium

Helium

Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...

, that was stored in tanks in the liquid oxygen tank above.

Between the fuel and liquid oxygen tanks was the intertank.
The liquid oxygen tank held 1,204,000 liters of LOX. It raised special issues for the designer. The lines through which the LOX ran to the engine had to be straight and therefore had to pass through the fuel tank. This meant insulating these lines inside a tunnel to stop fuel freezing to the outside and also meant five extra holes in the top of the fuel tank.

Two solid motor retrorockets were located inside each of the four conical engine fairings. At separation of the S-IC from the flight vehicle, the eight retrorockets fired, blowing off removable sections of the fairings forward of the fins, and backing the S-IC away from the flight vehicle as the engines on the S-II stage were ignited.

Stages built

Serial number	Use	Launch date	Current location	Notes
S-IC-T	static test firing		part of Saturn V display at Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. Although such flights are currently on hiatus, KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program...
S-IC-S	structural load testing (had no engines)		location unknown (last seen at MSFC)
S-IC-F	facilities testing for checking out launch complex assembly buildings and launch equipment		location unknown
S-IC-D	ground test dynamics model		U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city located primarily in Madison County in the central part of the far northern region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison County. The city extends west into neighboring Limestone County. Huntsville's population was 180,105 as of the 2010 Census....  34°42′38.7"N 86°39′24.2"W
S-IC-1	Apollo 4 Apollo 4 Apollo 4, , was the first unmanned test flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle, which was ultimately used by the Apollo program to send the first men to the Moon...	November 9, 1967		Manufactured by MSFC
S-IC-2	Apollo 6 Apollo 6 Apollo 6, launched on April 4, 1968, was the Apollo program's second and last A type mission—unmanned test flight of its Saturn V launch vehicle. It was intended to demonstrate full lunar injection capability of the Saturn V, and the capability of the Command Module's heat shield to withstand a...	April 4, 1968		Manufactured by MSFC; carried TV and cameras on Boattail and Forward skirt
S-IC-3	Apollo 8 Apollo 8 Apollo 8, the second manned mission in the American Apollo space program, was the first human spaceflight to leave Earth orbit; the first to be captured by and escape from the gravitational field of another celestial body; and the first crewed voyage to return to Earth from another celestial...	December 21, 1968	30°12′N 74°7′W	Manufactured by Boeing (as with all subsequent stages); weighed less than previously manufactured units allowing 36 kg more payload
S-IC-4	Apollo 9 Apollo 9 Apollo 9, the third manned mission in the American Apollo space program, was the first flight of the Command/Service Module with the Lunar Module...	March 3, 1969	30°11′N 74°14′W
S-IC-5	Apollo 10 Apollo 10 Apollo 10 was the fourth manned mission in the American Apollo space program. It was an F type mission—its purpose was to be a "dry run" for the Apollo 11 mission, testing all of the procedures and components of a Moon landing without actually landing on the Moon itself. The mission included the...	May 18, 1969	30°11′N 74°12′W	Last flight for S-IC R&D Instrumentation
S-IC-6	Apollo 11 Apollo 11 In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...	July 16, 1969	30°13′N 74°2′W
S-IC-7	Apollo 12 Apollo 12 Apollo 12 was the sixth manned flight in the American Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon . It was launched on November 14, 1969 from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, four months after Apollo 11. Mission commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L...	November 14, 1969	30°16′N 74°54′W
S-IC-8	Apollo 13 Apollo 13 Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST. The landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command...	April 11, 1970	30°11′N 74°4′W
S-IC-9	Apollo 14 Apollo 14 Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the American Apollo program, and the third to land on the Moon. It was the last of the "H missions", targeted landings with two-day stays on the Moon with two lunar EVAs, or moonwalks....	January 31, 1971	29°50′N 74°3′W
S-IC-10	Apollo 15 Apollo 15 Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission in the American Apollo space program, the fourth to land on the Moon and the eighth successful manned mission. It was the first of what were termed "J missions", long duration stays on the Moon with a greater focus on science than had been possible on previous...	July 26, 1971	29°42′N 73°39′W
S-IC-11	Apollo 16 Apollo 16 Young and Duke served as the backup crew for Apollo 13; Mattingly was slated to be the Apollo 13 command module pilot until being pulled from the mission due to his exposure to rubella through Duke.-Backup crew:...	April 16, 1972	30°12′N 74°9′W
S-IC-12	Apollo 17 Apollo 17 Apollo 17 was the eleventh and final manned mission in the American Apollo space program. Launched at 12:33 a.m. EST on December 7, 1972, with a three-member crew consisting of Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 remains the...	December 7, 1972	28°13′N 73°53′W
S-IC-13	Skylab 1	May 14, 1973		engine shutoff changed to 1-2-2 from 1-4 to lessen loads on Apollo Telescope Mount
S-IC-14	Unused		Saturn V display at Johnson Space Center	Scheduled for Apollo 18 Apollo 18 Apollo 18 may refer to:* One of the canceled Apollo missions of the American Apollo lunar program* The officially unnumbered Apollo spacecraft used in the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project* Apollo 18 , a 1992 album by They Might Be Giants... /19
S-IC-15	Unused		Michoud Assembly Facility	Designated but never used as a backup Skylab launch vehicle

External links

• Stages to Saturn
• Apollo Saturn Reference Page
• Video of static test on YouTube