Saturn 1 rocket. Launch of a Saturn 1 rocket dur- ing a programme to develop a rocket for launching Apollo spacecraft into Earth orbit. This mission,

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Saturn 1 rocket. Launch of a Saturn 1 rocket dur- ing a programme to develop a rocket for launching Apollo spacecraft into Earth orbit. This mission, SA-4, was the fourth Saturn 1 launch, all of which had been successful. Saturn 1's first stage had 8 H-1 engines, & a feature of the design was that if one failed then the others would burn for longer to compensate. On this flight, engine number 5 was deliberately cut-off 100 seconds after lift-off. The other engines successfully compensated & the rocket reached an altitude of 120 kilometres (km). It had a dummy second stage and it fell to Earth 376 km from the launch site. Photographed on 28 March 1963.

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Size: 3907px × 4961px
Photo credit: © NASA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 1, apollo, launch, programme, rocket, sa-4, saturn, space, spaceflight