Saturn V
will land humans on the Moon.
Saturn V
will land humans on the Moon.
Statistics
1969
Powered by 11 engines, this three-stage rocket will be powered by liquid fuel and carry a lunar landing module to land humans on the Moon.
363.0 ft
height
33.0 ft
diameter
6,221,000 lb
mass
7,891,000 lbf
first stage maximum thrust (sea level)
1,155,800 lbf
second stage maximum thrust (vacuum)
232,250 lbf
third stage maximum thrust (vacuum)
Mission
Land humans on the Moon.
Takeoff
Carrying Apollo 11, the Saturn V will take off from Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969.
First Stage Separation
About three minutes into the flight, the first stage will separate from the rocket, and the second stage will ignite.
Second Stage Separation
Nine minutes into the flight, the second stage will separate, and the third stage will ignite.
Near-Earth Orbit
The rocket will achieve near-Earth orbit roughly twelve minutes into the flight, at an altitude of around 100 nautical miles.
Heading for the Moon
After one and a half orbits, the third stage will ignite once again, and the rocket will head toward the moon.
Separate the Command/Landing modules
Thirty minutes later, the command module Columbia along with the lunar landing module Eagle will separate from the third stage and head toward the moon.
Arrival at the Moon
Three days later Apollo 11 will arrive at the Moon and begin an orbit around it.
Moon Landing
The next day, Eagle will detach from Columbia and descend towards the Sea of Tranquility.
"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
Eagle will land in the Sea of Tranquility on Sunday, July 20, 1969.
About
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.
In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man’s history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where the F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.
John F. Kennedy - We Choose to go to the Moon