Author Topic: Saturn's other engines (Read 16327 times)

nicp · « **on:** 01/19/2022 03:35 pm »

I've been looking for information about Saturn liquid fueled engines and solid motors excluding the big ones, F-1, J-2, H-1, RL-10.
I have found some good information on the S-IV/S-IVB auxiliary propulsion system (APS) which provided ullage and attitude control for the S-IV and S-IVB. This is easily found here for example... http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/000878.html

That gives a good insight into the layout of the APS, heroicelics has some nice external shots... http://heroicrelics.org/ksc/saturn-ib/dsc07142.jpg.html

If there's more out there on the APS, please let me know. (Off topic and I may regret this: This document describes trouble with AS-501 including sticky valves. Ducks for cover. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19690016846/downloads/19690016846.pdf )

But there were also a bunch of solid motors mostly involved in staging. As I recall the Apollo 15 first stage got a bit roasted by the S-II because some of the separation solids had been deleted from the S-IC to save weight (and these were re-instated for Apollos 16, 17 and Skylab, I probably learned that from 'Stages to Saturn' Bilstein which is free on the web).
However I don't think I've seen any pictures of Saturn's solids, nor specifications. Does anyone have info, links etc?

Thanks.
Nic

EDIT: Missing word.
EDIT2: Clarify only some solids deleted.

bkellysky · « **Reply #1 on:** 01/19/2022 10:00 pm »

National Air and Space Museum had a used stage separation solid rocket motor in their collection, but my link to it is dead.
I tried to get them to lend it to me when I did my "Failure IS an Option" talks to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.
Not showing up in a search of the NASM site or via a search engine

EDIT: Still can't find it at NASM, but it was an Ullage motor.
bob k