Saturn S-IV-5 Launch Quick Look Report 1964 Douglas Missile & Space Systems (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

January 29, 1964 Saturn Apollo SA-5 test: First flight of the Saturn I launch vehicle's S-IV second stage, which used 6 Centaur type liquid hydrogen fueled engines.

Originally a public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_I

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Saturn I (pronounced "Saturn one") was a rocket designed as the United States' first medium lift launch vehicle for up to 20,000-pound (9,100 kg) low Earth orbit payloads... It was successful in initiating the development of liquid hydrogen-fueled rocket propulsion, launching the Pegasus satellites, and flight verification of the Apollo command and service module launch phase aerodynamics. Ten Saturn I rockets were flown before it was replaced by the heavy lift derivative Saturn IB, which used a larger, higher total impulse second stage and an improved guidance and control system. It also led the way to development of the super-heavy lift Saturn V which carried the first men to landings on the Moon in the Apollo program.

President John F. Kennedy identified the Saturn I, and the SA-5 launch in particular, as being the point where US lift capability would surpass the Soviets, after being behind since Sputnik...

History

Origins

The Saturn project was started as one of a number of proposals to meet a new Department of Defense (DoD) requirement for a heavy-lift vehicle to orbit a new class of communications and "other" satellites. The requirements called for a vehicle capable of putting 20,000 to 40,000 pounds (9,100 to 18,100 kg) into orbit, or accelerating 13,200 to 26,200 pounds (6,000 to 11,900 kg) to trans-lunar injection...

Wernher von Braun's team at the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) started studying the problem in April 1957. They calculated that a rocket with the required performance would require a lower-stage booster with a thrust of about 1.5 million pound-force (6.7 MN) thrust at takeoff. As it happened, the Air Force had recently started work on just such an engine, eventually emerging as the F-1. But the F-1 would not be available in the time frame that the DoD was demanding and would be limited to about 1 million lbf in the short term anyway. Another possibility was a Rocketdyne engine, then known as the E-1, which provided about 360,000 to 380,000 lbf (1,600 to 1,700 kN), four of which would reach the required thrust levels. This approach became the favorite and was paired with a first stage built from a cluster of nine tanks placed atop a thrust plate where the engines and plumbing would be attached. The design envisaged eight rocket tanks similar to the Redstone stage strapped around a central larger tank derived from a Jupiter rocket... Contrary to what was reported to the press at the time (and propagated commonly ever since), the tanks were not simply Redstone and Jupiter tanks, but much longer versions built anew at the same diameter...

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was formed in February 1958... ABMA quickly responded with a slightly modified design replacing the four E-1's with eight H-1 engines, a minor upgrade to the S-3D engine used on Thor and Jupiter missiles. They estimated that changing the engines would save about $60 million and as much as two years of research and development time...

The Committee outlined a number of different potential launch configurations, grouped into three broad categories. The "A" group were low-risk versions... The B-1 design proposed a new second stage replacing the A-2s cluster with a new four-engine design using the H-1 like the lower stage. Finally, there were three C-series models that replaced all of the upper stages with liquid hydrogen ones. The C-1 used the existing S-I clustered lower, adding the new S-IV stage with four new 15,000 to 20,000 lbf (67 to 89 kN) engines, and keeping the two-engine Centaur on top, now to be known as the S-V stage. The C-II model added a new S-III stage with two new 150,000 to 200,000 lbf (670 to 890 kN) engines, keeping the S-IV and S-V on top. Finally, the C-3 configuration added the S-II stage with four of these same engines, keeping only the S-III and S-IV on top...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-IV