These missiles included the Navy's Viking, and the Army's Corporal, Jupiter and Redstone. In the early 1950s, the US Navy and US Army actively developed long-range missiles with the help of German rocket engineers who were involved in developing the successful V-2 during the Second World War. Launched nine crewed lunar missions and the Skylab space station Used for Skylab crews and Apollo-Soyuz Test Project Īll the Saturn family rockets are listed here by date of introduction.Ĭarried Apollo boilerplate CSM and Pegasus micrometeroid satellites. No Saturn rocket failed catastrophically in flight.
A total of 24 humans were flown to the Moon in the four years spanning December 1968 through December 1972. To date, the Saturn V is the only launch vehicle to transport human beings beyond low Earth orbit. He last mentioned this in a speech given at Brooks AFB in San Antonio on the day before he was assassinated. Kennedy identified the Saturn I SA-5 launch as being the point where US lift capability would surpass the Soviets, after having been behind since Sputnik.
The Saturn name was proposed by von Braun in October 1958 as a logical successor to the Jupiter series as well as the Roman god's powerful position. Three versions were built and flown: the medium-lift Saturn I, the heavy-lift Saturn IB, and the super heavy-lift Saturn V. Originally proposed as a military satellite launcher, they were adopted as the launch vehicles for the Apollo Moon program. The Saturn family used liquid hydrogen as fuel in the upper stages. The Saturn family of American rockets was developed by a team of mostly German rocket scientists led by Wernher von Braun to launch heavy payloads to Earth orbit and beyond. Three variants of the Saturn family which were developed: Saturn I, Saturn IB, and Saturn V