Word: saturns
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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After a nearly flawless maiden flight in November, the Saturn 5 moon rocket ran into so many difficulties during its second mission last month that NASA officials feared yet another unmanned flight would be necessary before the rocket could be trusted to carry astronauts into space. Now, after a careful review of the troubles that cropped up in flight, NASA has decided that it can probably correct them all and make Saturn 5 safe enough to carry a manned Apollo spacecraft into orbit this November or December. By eliminating another unmanned test of the huge rocket, NASA would save about...
...first of Saturn's obvious troubles, the unexpected and early shutdown of two of the five J-2 engines powering the second stage (TIME, April 12), was traced to a fuel line that broke under the strain of liquid hydrogen flowing through it at approximately 100 m.p.h. The break set off a chain of events that lowered pressure in the engine, which automatically shut down. Because of an incorrectly wired circuit, the shutdown on the first engine sent a signal to another, perfectly operating engine, erroneously ordering it to shut down also...
NASA scientists at the same time revealed a previously undisclosed problem during the flight: the "Pogo Effect," an up-and-down, pogo-stick-like vibration that was also detected during Saturn 5's initial flight. The effect, caused by the synchronous pulsing of all five first-stage F-1 engines at their natural resonant frequency, produced a vibrational force of three-tenths Gs during the first flight-enough to jar astronauts had they been aboard, but not enough to cause any serious difficulty. On the April shot, however, the Pogo Effect reached a force of seven-tenths...
Russian Planets? The U.S. moon program has been delayed for more than a year by the Apollo launching-pad fire. But despite the holocaust, and the flawed performance of the Saturn 5 moon rocket three weeks ago, it is still ahead of the Soviet Union's. Engineers now blame the Saturn 5 failures on what appear to be a pair of rare flukes-a leak in a secondary fuel line and crossed cut-off signal wires that shut down the wrong rocket engine. The Russians have no moon rocket to compare with the Saturn 5, which is capable...
...week's end, disappointed space scientists were picking through telemetry attempting to discover what had gone wrong with the previously reliable Saturn. Preliminary analysis suggested that the two second-stage rocket engines might have been damaged during the separation of the first stage and that an electrical malfunction had prevented the third stage from restarting in orbit The misfires dimmed NASA's hope that the next Saturn shot would carry three astronauts into orbit. Instead, if further diagnosis shows that the rocket's ills are serious, it may be necessary to prove them cured in another unmanned...