The Saturn V Apollo Moon Rocket

I have in my collection a pamphlet called The Saturn V Apollo Moon Rocket. This early Marshall Space Flight Center pamphlet gives an overview of the Saturn V rocket and its mission, including information on each stage and the rocket engines which power them.

This pamphlet is undated; the only reference to any date is the lunar orbital rendezvous (LOR) decision in July 1962. The rocket is referred to as the "Saturn V", rather than the "Saturn C-5" (although some of the graphics still refer to the "C-5" and "C-1B"); the Saturn naming convention was changed in February 1963. The pamphlet still refers to the Florida launch facilities as the "Launch Operations Center"; the LOC was renamed to Kennedy Space Center on November 29, 1963 by Executive Order 11129. Thus, it seems that this pamphlet was likely published in early 1963.

The pamphlet is somewhat unusual in its construction; it's your standard single-sheet-of-paper-folded-in-half pamphlet, but with an extra "overlay" flap.

Proceed to download links.

Saturn V Apollo Moon Rocket


This pamphlet dates back to a time of real excitement and optimism about the program. It touts that "[f]our launches of the Saturn V are currently scheduled for 1966, and six are planned for 1967." After the first launch in "early 1966", operational launches would occur "about two years later"; goodness only knows what the operational launch rate would be.

With such a high launch rate, a large launch complex with several launch pads would certainly be required. This pamphlet shows an early LC-39 concept, where LC-39 had four launch pads (presumably adding LC-39D); note the "kink" along the route to the north-most pad; presumably, this would allow the eventual addition of yet another launch pad!

Launch Complex 39a 39b 39c 39d LC-39A LC-39B LC-39C LC-39D

Click image for a 1918x1232 pixel version of this image in a new window.
From page 4 of The Saturn V Apollo Moon Rocket.
Scan, cleanup, and extraction by heroicrelics.org.

Of course, Apollo 4, the first Saturn V launch, didn't actually occur until November 9, 1967. Other than 1969 (which did see the launch of four Saturn Vs), the launch rate was only one or two a year throughout its 1967-1973 operational period. Only two launch pads at LC-39 were actually built.


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I've prepared three PDFs: