Tuesday, May 6, 2008

FACTS ABOUT THE S1C ROCKET STAGE


Here are some figures about our stage (simplified):
Major Structure: 1. The skirts that enclosed the components were made out of aluminum.
2. The 2 fuel tanks (Liquid oxygen and RP-1 Kerosene).
3. Forward skirts were a part of
The thrust structure which was above the five F-1 Rocketdyne Engines.

Weight: 300,000 lb (dry)
Diameter: 33 feet
Height: 138 feet
Burntime: About 2.5 minutes
Velocity: 6,000 miles per hour
Altitude at burnout: 38 miles

Propulsion: 5 bi-propellant engines (Rocketdyne F-1)
Loaded Weight: 4,792,000 pounds
For fuel pressurization: gaseous nitrogen and helium.
Gaseous oxygen was converted to LOX by the engines.
Main propellant was RP-1 (Kerosene).

The electrical system was powered by two 28 VDC batteries.
The hydraulic system was used for engine start and gimbling the 4 outboard engines. The center engine was fixed.
The instrumentation (I worked on this) handled 900
measurements of which our team handled about 100.

Tracking was done by a ODOP Transponder (no one today even knows what this is).
This was the most powerful space rocket stage ever built.
NASA loved it because really had power to boost the Saturn V space rocket out of the atmosphere and on to the Moon.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Sara, I sent you a dm reply from Twitter, but don't know if it went through or not. 140 characters is not a lot to work with, anyway!

    Your blog looks interesting, I'd certainly like to know more about the Saturn rockets. I was 6 when Apollo 11 landed, so didn't get to work on them, but there is a story behind the photo on my Twitter:

    http://4lightside.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!6030B10D45660AB4!127.entry

    I've been by Michoud once, a few years ago on vacation, and would have liked to go on a tour, but some of my kids weren't old enough. We did get to see Stennis, and was delighted to find quite a nice visitor's center there (this was before Katrina, hope it's OK now).

    That's an S1C parked in front at Michoud, I suppose? One thing I've always been curious about is to see a comprehensive list of the various Saturn stages, how they could variously fit together, and what was the number scheme.

    As far as my job, I did work for NASA years ago, while in school, and then for Rockwell for a little while after college. All this was at JSC and mostly on the shuttle.

    For a long time now I've had my own very small research co., Flight Development Corp., working out of a home office. We've done basic research, primarily, on system theory, psychology and related applications of our system model.

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  2. Thank you for your nice and interesting comments.
    I have all of the information you need about the Saturn V Stages. I will post about those soon.
    Michoud was hardly damaged by Katrina. Read my post about Michoud. There is a picture.Sara

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  3. Who says no one knows what a ODOP transponder is? ODOP stands for Offset Doppler.

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  4. Brett, who are you? Do you work with ODOP data today? I am more aware than you what ODOP is. My family has Electrical Engineers and I talk to FAA. Let me tell you about public today. Mention "physics" and people's eyes glaze over and they fall down in a dead faint.
    There are MILLIONS who have no technical knowledge period. Tell me how many people know
    ODOP? I have met ONE in 40 years all over the U.S.

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