NASA Study Summary: "Apollo "A"/Saturn C-1 Launch Vehicle System"

[luke strawwalker]

Hey guys... here's a study from 1961 entitled "Apollo "A" Saturn C-1 Launch Vehicle System". The report was basically an in-depth (440 pages!) report on the Saturn I/ Saturn I Block II as it stood in July of 61. The report was put out for prospective bidders to help them design the Apollo "Block A" spacecraft proposals for submission to NASA, since the Apollo boilerplates would fly on Saturn I Block II before they flew on anything else (which was still supposed to be NOVA when this study was published!) There's a LOT of minutae in the report, but the introduction has some good historical background information and there's quite a few good graphics in the report as well. I didn't bother summarizing antenna viewing angles for maximum signal fidelity of the vehicle telemetry in relation to the exhaust plume signal blocking and other such arcane subjects that the report goes into at length, but I did summarize the more interesting historical stuff and snip the graphics out of it. Enjoy! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Ok.. the first pic is the Saturn C-1, C-2, and C-3 configs as they stood in July of 1961 when the report was published. Notice the different size stages of the "S-II"-- one was designed for the C-2 and then redesigned for C-3. Kinda weird. Too bad C-3 never happened as it would have made an excellent replacement for C-1 and a good strap-on LRB for uprated Saturn V's...

The second pic is the notional Apollo "A" spacecraft. Notice the very "Mercury-esque" escape tower... I've even seen some that were an exact upsized duplicate of the Mercury tower, and sure looked funny sitting on top of an Apollo! Notice also the cluster of SRM's for retro rockets in place of the SPS rocket engine in the SM... the equipment areas seem to be arranged in a toroid area surrounding these retro motors. Also note the ellipsoidal "space laboratory" mounted in the adapter section behind the capsule and retromotors-- no mention whatsoever as to what it is or what it was to do, or how it was to be accessed-- purely notional I presume...

Pic three is the Saturn I Block II, in a dimensioned drawing. Standard fare...

Pic four is a closeup of the details on the S-I first stage of the C-1 vehicle...

Pic five is a diagram of the liftoff and staged vehicle configurations from the part of the study dealing with stability and flight dynamics...

More to come! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Pic one is the layout and clocking of the S-I stage with the engine locations and the tank locations laid out and explained. The central 105 inch tank was for LOX, and every other 70 inch outside tank was LOX with the alternates being for RP-1 (kerosene). The four cental H-1 engines and their numbers are signified by dots, and the outer four H-1 engines are also shown as well, along with the positions of the vehicle.

Pic two is a diagram of the tail configuration and some of the details such as the fins and stub fins, and the exhaust ducts and drain/fill connections.

Pic three is a diagram of the actual fin layout with all the relevant dimensions.

The fourth pic is another detail section of the fins with the specifications according the chord of the fin in chart form from what I can tell...

The fifth pic is a scale drawing of the S-IV stage with it's six RL-10 engines.

More to come... OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Ok... first pic is a large-scale foldout-- these things tended not to reproduce very well, but it is what it is... magnify it to see the details and dimensions, since they were done 'microscopically'.... Note the early style IU with the multiple intersection cross-shaped tubes into a central hub...

The second pic is a continuation of the first part of the foldout, showing the S-IV stage and the upper part of the S-I first stage tank cluster and interstage area with the S-IV's RL-10's in cutaway.

The third pic is the aft section of the foldout drawing showing the details at the back end of the S-I first stage and fins.

The fourth pic is a larger view of the closeup shown above...

The fifth pic is details on the S-IV stage, particularly on the RL-10 engine cluster and ullage rockets.

More coming! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Pic one is more detail of the fin area on the S-I stage...

Pic two is the S-I stage with it's ground handling hardware and transporter shown in an exploded view... All the Saturn I/IB's before Skylab were stacked on the pad, so the ground transporter was the main mode of moving the thing around and out to the pad.

The third pic is showing the installation of the jack pad assembly onto the corners of the stage transporter.

Pic four is the S-IV stage transporter

Pic five is showing airborne piggy back transport of the S-IV stage on a C-133aircraft.

More to come! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

The first pic is a C-133 aircraft with the S-I stage being carried piggyback. These aircraft proposals were unsolicited from various companies.

Pic two is another possibility, with the S-I stage turned around engines forward, which is where most of the stage weight is, and which needs to be closer to the aircraft CG to keep the CG position of the aircraft correct for stable flight. Hence the "bumps" on the nose cap covering the engines. This moves the entire stage structure aft, which helps with the aircraft loading CG and the controllability of the aircraft by having the center of lateral area further aft as well, but entails more modifications of the aircraft to support. The vertical stabilizer has to be removed and enlarged outboard twin rudders installed in their place, instead of the smaller outboard vertical stabilizers used with the main rudder as in the first proposal.

Pic three is another proposal from a glider company in Dallas. It proposes using a C-130 aircraft as the tractor for a large dedicated glider pulled behind it, carrying the S-I stage. This glider would be pulled by a flexible towbar connecting the two aircraft, so that the glider can land behind the tractor aircraft while still attached. This proposal was seen as beneficial in that the tractor aircraft needed very few and basic mods, and could service a number of gliders, easing ground handling and turnaround concerns (three gliders would allow one to stay where the stage would be loaded on it, one in transit, and another empty at the destination awaiting a return flight, forming a continuous supply chain that could handle large launch volumes. Sadly it was never needed.

Pic four is a map of the launch area, showing Mercury control and the pads at Cape Canaveral AFS and the Saturn Pad as SLC-34 and SLC-37.

Pic five is an interesting idea that I'll bet most of the astronauts were quite happy never went any further-- instead of having a side hatch as Mercury and Gemini had, this early proposal for Apollo would have had the crew enter the capsule THROUGH THE NOSE DOCKING HATCH! That's right, crawl between the legs of the escape tower, and down into the capsule like crawling in the turret hatch of a tank, only 300 feet above the ground, while wearing a bulky space suit... sounds like a plan to me!

More to come! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Pic one is a typical service arm on the tower... only one was shown in some diagrams of the tower and umbilicals.

Pic two is a view straight down at the launch pad, showing the hold-down arms and how the vehicle is clocked in relation to the launch pad. This is another large foldout...

Pic three is the other half of the launch pad hold-downs from the foldout...

That's it for this one! OL JR

[nealkas]

And all of the illustrations hand drawn!

No pc wizardry back then.

T-squares, triangles, a scale, and a whole lotta pencils!

[NJRick]

Great stuff again Luke! thank you!
can you imagine hauling a S-1 stage on a glider being pulled by a C-130?....that would be one heck of a glider...
I liked the map of the launch complexes too...for what ever reason, LC-37 had two pads....Pad A and Pad B...Pad A was never used....multiple launches off of Pad B, but not a single launch was ever made from Pad A. Makes you wonder why not? I understand with LC-39 that there was only one Saturn 5 launched from Pad B....by the time 10 launched, 11 landed and I think things began to wind down and the Cape didn't have to maintain that kind of pace (processing three saturn 5's at once) so Pad B went into a kinda stand by mode. LC-37 was right in the thick of things though in the mid 60's..another useless fact stuck in my head...