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97-615: The purpose of the MR-1 flight was to qualify the Mercury spacecraft and the Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle for the sub-orbital Mercury mission. It would also qualify the spacecraft's automated flight control and recovery systems, as well as the launch, tracking, and recovery operations on the ground. The flight would also test the Mercury-Redstone's automatic inflight abort sensing system, which would be operating in "open-loop" mode. This meant that

194-459: A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). Scientists from MSFC were among the co-investigators. The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), popularly known as the "Moon Buggy," was developed at MSFC to provide transportation for exploring a limited amount of the Moon's surface. Not intended in the original planning, by 1969 it became clear that an LRV would be needed to maximize the scientific returns. An LRV

291-521: A Jupiter C in a Juno I configuration (addition of a fourth stage) to successfully place Explorer 1 , the first US satellite, into orbit around the Earth. Effective at the end of March 1958, the U.S. Army Ordnance Missile Command (AOMC), encompassing the ABMA and its newly operational space programs. In August, AOMC and Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, a Department of Defense organization) jointly initiated

388-830: A deployable attachment to the Apollo spacecraft. Called the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM), the project was assigned to MSFC in 1966. As the Orbital Workshop matured into the Skylab, the ATM was added as an appendage, but the two activities were kept as independent development projects. Rein Ise was the ATM project manager at MSFC. The ATM included eight major instruments for observations of the Sun at wavelengths from extreme ultraviolet to infrared . The data

485-554: A distance of 1,500 mi (2,400 km), successfully withstanding 38 times the normal pull of gravity. On October 21, 1959, President Eisenhower approved the transfer of all Army space-related activities to NASA. On July 1, 1960 the Marshall Space Flight Center, or the MSFC, was created out of the old Redstone Arsenal. The Center was then also placed under the jurisdiction of the recently created NASA, and Wernher von Braun

582-413: A failure like MR-1's from recurring, subsequent Mercury-Redstones added a grounding strap about 12 inches (30 cm) long to electrically connect the rocket to the launch pad. This strap was designed to separate from the rocket well after all other electrical connections to the ground had been severed. Mercury engineers were also concerned that MR-1's failure had allowed a "normal cutoff" signal to reach

679-421: A more powerful 230-thousand-pounds thrust. The J-2 was gimbaled and could also be restarted during flight. The vehicle was first flight-tested on February 26, 1966. Fourteen Saturn 1Bs (or partial vehicles) were built, with five used in uncrewed testing and five others used in crewed missions, the last on July 15, 1975. The Saturn V , an expendable human-rated heavy-lift vehicle, was the most vital element in

776-401: A power cable, which provided electrical power and grounding . Both cables were plugged into the rocket at the bottom edge of one of its tail fins and would separate at liftoff. The control cable was supposed to separate first, followed by the power cable. However, for this launch, the control cable was longer than expected—it was one designed for the military PGM-11 Redstone missile rather than

873-546: A program managed by ABMA to develop a large space booster of approximately 1.5-million-pounds thrust using a cluster of available rocket engines. In early 1959, this vehicle was designated Saturn . On April 2, President Dwight D. Eisenhower recommended to Congress that a civilian agency be established to direct nonmilitary space activities. On July 29, the President signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act , forming

970-404: A rifle to shoot holes in the booster's propellant tanks to depressurize them. He eventually took the advice of one of the test engineers to simply wait out the battery discharge and let the oxidizer boil off. This early test failure and subsequent panic led Kraft to declare "That is the first rule of flight control. If you don't know what to do, don't do anything." Technicians therefore waited until

1067-529: A rocket stage may be recovered while others are not. The Space Shuttle , for example, recovered and reused its solid rocket boosters , the Space Shuttle orbiter that also acted as a second stage, and the engines used by the core stage (the RS-25 , which was located at the back of the orbiter), however the fuel tank that the engines sourced fuel from, which was separate from the engines, was not reused. For example,

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1164-536: A similar number of employees working in MSFC facilities. Several support contracting firms were also involved in the programs; the largest of these was Brown Engineering Company (BECO, later Teledyne Brown Engineering ), the first high-technology firm in Huntsville and by this time having some 3,500 employees. In the Saturn-Apollo activities, BECO/TBE provided about 20-million man-hours of support. Milton K. Cummings

1261-455: A total of 1.0-million-pounds thrust. The third stage (S-IVB) had a single gimballed J-2 engine with 200-thousand-pounds thrust. As previously noted, the J-2 engine could be restarted in flight. The basic configuration for this heavy-lift vehicle was selected in early 1963, and the name Saturn V was applied at that time (configurations that might have led to Saturn II, III, and IV were discarded). While

1358-593: A widely read article on this subject. In mid-1952, the Germans were hired as regular civil service employees, with most becoming U.S. citizens in 1954-55. Von Braun was appointed Chief of the Guided Missile Development Division. In September 1954, von Braun proposed using the Redstone as the main booster of a multi-stage rocket for launching artificial satellites. A year later, a study for Project Orbiter

1455-643: Is developing the first stage of the orbital New Glenn LV to be reusable, with first flight planned for no earlier than 2024. SpaceX has a new super-heavy launch vehicle under development for missions to interplanetary space . The SpaceX Starship is designed to support RTLS, vertical-landing and full reuse of both the booster stage and the integrated second-stage/large-spacecraft that are designed for use with Starship. Its first launch attempt took place in April 2023; however, both stages were lost during ascent. The fifth launch attempt ended with Booster 12 being caught by

1552-502: Is now on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, New York. Other Mercury-Redstone rockets are on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville and elsewhere. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration . Launch vehicle A launch vehicle

1649-453: Is the most powerful single-nozzle liquid-fueled rocket engine ever used in service; each produced 1.5-million-pounds thrust. Originally started by the U.S. Air Force, responsibility for the development was taken over by ABMA in 1959, and the first test firings at MSFC were in December 1963. The original vehicle, designated Saturn I , consisted of two propulsion stages and an instrument unit; it

1746-653: Is typically a rocket -powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites ) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space . The most common form is the ballistic missile -shaped multistage rocket , but the term is more general and also encompasses vehicles like the Space Shuttle . Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad , supported by a launch control center and systems such as vehicle assembly and fueling. Launch vehicles are engineered with advanced aerodynamics and technologies, which contribute to high operating costs. An orbital launch vehicle must lift its payload at least to

1843-667: The European Space Agency is responsible for the Ariane V , and the United Launch Alliance manufactures and launches the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets. Launchpads can be located on land ( spaceport ), on a fixed ocean platform ( San Marco ), on a mobile ocean platform ( Sea Launch ), and on a submarine . Launch vehicles can also be launched from the air . A launch vehicle will start off with its payload at some location on

1940-652: The External Tank (ET) that carried liquid fuel for the OV's main engines. MSFC was responsible for the SRBs, the OV's three main engines, and the ET. MSFC was also responsible for the integration of Spacelab , a versatile laboratory developed by the European Space Agency and carried in the Shuttle's cargo bay on some flights. The first test firing of an OV main engine was in 1975. Two years later,

2037-541: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA incorporated the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics , Ames Research Center , Langley Research Center , and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory . Despite the existence of an official space agency, the Army continued with far-reaching space programs. In June 1959, a secret study on Project Horizon was completed by ABMA, detailing plans for using

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2134-488: The range safety destruct charges . Furthermore, the capsule's main and reserve parachutes were hanging down the side of the rocket, threatening to tip it over if they caught enough wind; this did not occur, however, as the weather conditions were favorable. Amid the panicked atmosphere in the control room, the launch team was unable to come up with quick and viable options to rectify the situation. Flight director Chris Kraft rejected several unsafe interventions, including using

2231-444: The upper stage of the launch vehicle or launched to a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). A direct insertion places greater demands on the launch vehicle, while GTO is more demanding of the spacecraft. Once in orbit, launch vehicle upper stages and satellites can have overlapping capabilities, although upper stages tend to have orbital lifetimes measured in hours or days while spacecraft can last decades. Distributed launch involves

2328-467: The 2000s and launch vehicles with integrated distributed launch capability built in began development in 2017 with the Starship design. The standard Starship launch architecture is to refuel the spacecraft in low Earth orbit to enable the craft to send high-mass payloads on much more energetic missions. After 1980, but before the 2010s, two orbital launch vehicles developed the capability to return to

2425-566: The Apollo Program. Designed under the direction of Arthur Rudolph , the Saturn V holds the record as the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever brought to operational status from a combined height, weight, and payload standpoint. The Saturn V consisted of three propulsion stages and an instrument unit. The first stage (S-IC), had five F-1 engines, giving a combined total of 7.5-million-pounds thrust. The S-II second stage had five J-2 engines with

2522-735: The Army George C. Marshall . The center contains the Huntsville Operations Support Center ( HOSC ), also known as the International Space Station Payload Operations Center . This facility supports ISS launch, payload, and experiment activities at the Kennedy Space Center . The HOSC also monitors rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station when a Marshall Center payload is on board. MSFC has been NASA's lead center for

2619-496: The Army's newly formed Research and Development Division Sub-office (Rocket). For the next five years, von Braun and the German scientists and engineers were primarily engaged in adapting and improving the V-2 missile for U.S. applications. Testing was conducted at nearby White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico . von Braun was allowed to use a WAC Corporal rocket as a second stage for a V-2;

2716-565: The Earth on February 8, 1974. The Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) was the last flight of a Saturn IB. On 15 July 1975, a three-person crew was launched on a six-day mission to dock with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The primary purpose was to provide engineering experience for future joint space flights, but both spacecraft also had scientific experiments. This was the last crewed U.S. space mission until April 1981. The High Energy Astronomy Observatory (HEAO) Program involved three missions of large spacecraft in low Earth orbit . Each spacecraft

2813-498: The Florida launch that might involve Shuttle propulsion. On April 12, 1981, Columbia made the first orbital test flight with a crew of two astronauts. This was designated STS-1 (Space Transportation System-1) and verified the combined performance of the entire system. STS-1 was followed by STS-2 on November 12, demonstrating safe re-launch of Columbia . During 1982, STS-3 and STS-4 were completed. STS-5 , launched November 11,

2910-570: The Jupiter-C capability was such that it could have placed the fourth stage in orbit, that mission had been assigned to the NRL. Later Jupiter-C flights would be used to launch satellites. The first Jupiter IRBM flight took place from Cape Canaveral in March 1957 with the first successful flight to full range on 31 May. Jupiter was eventually taken over by the U.S. Air Force. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 ,

3007-428: The MSFC had been July 1, 1960, but its dedication ceremony took place two months later on September 8. At the dedication ceremony President Eisenhower gave a speech. The MSFC was named in honor of General George C. Marshall . The administrative activities in MSFC were led by persons with backgrounds in traditional U.S. Government functions, but all of the technical heads were individuals who had assisted von Braun in

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3104-763: The May 1945 end of World War II in Germany, the US initiated Operation Paperclip to collect a number of scientists and engineers who had been at the center of Nazi Germany's advanced military technologies. In August 1945, 127 missile specialists led by Wernher von Braun signed work contracts with the United States Army Ordnance Corps . Most of them had worked on the V-2 missile development under von Braun at Peenemünde . The missile specialists were sent to Fort Bliss, Texas , joining

3201-513: The Moon: Apollo 11 , 12 , 14 , 15 , 16 , and 17 . Apollo 13 had been intended as a landing, but only circled the Moon and returned to Earth after an oxygen tank ruptured and crippled power in the CSM. Except for Apollo 11, all of the missions carried an Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP), composed of equipment for seven scientific experiments plus a central remote control station with

3298-402: The Redstone had shut down and was entering free fall. However, in MR-1, the Redstone was not in free fall but rather sitting supported on the ground. Thus the capsule sensors detected the effect of their own supported weight, which they read as a constant "acceleration" of 1 g. Because of this apparent acceleration, capsule separation was disabled. The jettison of the escape rocket activated

3395-489: The S1C Static Test Stand was for live firing of the five F-1 engines of the first stage. Delivering a total of 7.5-million-pounds thrust, the tests produced earthquake-like rumbles throughout the Huntsville area and could be heard as far as 100 mi (160 km) away. As the Saturn activities progressed, external facilities and factories were needed. In 1961, The Michoud Rocket Factory near New Orleans, Louisiana,

3492-463: The Saturn booster in establishing a crewed Army outpost on the Moon. Project Horizon was rejected, and the Saturn program was transferred to NASA. Project Mercury was officially named on 26 November 1958. With a future goal of crewed flight, monkeys Able and Miss Baker were the first living creatures recovered from outer space on May 28, 1959. They had been carried in the nose cone on a Jupiter missile to an altitude of 300 mi (480 km) and

3589-649: The US to a lunar landing by the end of the decade. The primary mission of MSFC under the Apollo program was developing the heavy-lift Saturn family rockets. This required the development and qualification of three new liquid-fueled rocket engines, the J-2 , F-1 , and H-1 . Additionally, the existing RL10 was improved for use on the Saturn S-IV stage. Leland F. Belew managed the Engine Development Office. The F-1 engine

3686-464: The United States under Operation Paperclip after working together at Peenemünde . Von Braun knew well the capabilities of these individuals and had great confidence in them. In the following decade of developing hardware and technical operations that established new levels of complexity, there was never a single failure of their booster designs during crewed flight. The initial main project at MSFC

3783-482: The abort sensing system could report a condition requiring an abort, but it would be unable to actually trigger an abort itself. Since the flight did not have a living passenger, this would not pose a safety problem, and it would prevent a faulty abort signal from prematurely ending the flight. The test used Mercury spacecraft #2 together with Redstone MR-1; its launch location was Cape Canaveral Air Force Station 's Launch Complex 5 . An early launch attempt on November 7

3880-537: The accomplishment of a goal with multiple spacecraft launches. A large spacecraft such as the International Space Station can be constructed by assembling modules in orbit, or in-space propellant transfer conducted to greatly increase the delta-V capabilities of a cislunar or deep space vehicle. Distributed launch enables space missions that are not possible with single launch architectures. Mission architectures for distributed launch were explored in

3977-407: The astronaut would have been left in a very precarious situation, stuck inside the Mercury capsule atop a fully fueled, fully independently powered, yet completely untethered and partially damaged Redstone booster. To prevent a situation like this, the Mercury-Redstone was altered so that it could not send a "normal cutoff" signal to the capsule until 129.5 seconds after liftoff, about 10 seconds before

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4074-479: The booster stage of a launch vehicle. After 2010, SpaceX undertook a development program to acquire the ability to bring back and vertically land a part of the Falcon 9 orbital launch vehicle: the first stage . The first successful landing was done in December 2015, since 2017 rocket stages routinely land either at a landing pad adjacent to the launch site or on a landing platform at sea, some distance away from

4171-838: The boundary of space, approximately 150 km (93 mi) and accelerate it to a horizontal velocity of at least 7,814 m/s (17,480 mph). Suborbital vehicles launch their payloads to lower velocity or are launched at elevation angles greater than horizontal. Practical orbital launch vehicles use chemical propellants such as solid fuel , liquid hydrogen , kerosene , liquid oxygen , or hypergolic propellants . Launch vehicles are classified by their orbital payload capacity, ranging from small- , medium- , heavy- to super-heavy lift . Launch vehicles are classed by NASA according to low Earth orbit payload capability: Sounding rockets are similar to small-lift launch vehicles, however they are usually even smaller and do not place payloads into orbit. A modified SS-520 sounding rocket

4268-399: The capsule and trigger the premature jettisoning of the escape rocket, since in an actual emergency this would remove the only escape mechanism for the astronaut. Had MR-1 been a crewed mission, the normal contingency would have been a pad abort, lifting the Mercury capsule off the booster and to safety via the escape rocket. Since the escape rocket had instead jettisoned itself from the capsule

4365-418: The capsule's parachute recovery system. Since the altitude was below 10,000 feet (3,000 m), this system was triggered by its atmospheric pressure sensors and followed its usual sequence, with the drogue parachute deploying first, followed by the main parachute. But because the main parachute was not supporting the capsule's weight, the parachute system did not detect any load on this chute, so it acted as if

4462-497: The checkout procedures. Static test stands had been constructed at ABMA for the Redstone and Jupiter rockets. In 1961, the Jupiter stand was modified to test Saturn 1 and 1B stages. A number of other test stands followed, the largest being the Saturn V Dynamic Test Stand completed in 1964. At 475 ft (145 m) in height, the entire Saturn V could be accommodated. Also completed in 1964,

4559-407: The chute had failed and deployed the reserve parachute. Since the Redstone's automatic inflight abort sensing system was running in open-loop mode, the engine shutdown did not trigger an abort. However, the system did report an abort condition, so it did function properly. The Redstone had suffered some minor damage from falling back on the pad, but it could still be used after refurbishment, so it

4656-505: The combination, called Bumper, reached a record-breaking 250 mi (400 km) altitude. During World War II, the production and storage of ordnance shells was conducted by three arsenals nearby to Huntsville, Alabama . After the war, these were closed, and the three areas were combined to form Redstone Arsenal . In 1949, the Secretary of the Army approved the transfer of the rocket research and development activities from Fort Bliss to

4753-465: The development of rocket propulsion systems and technologies. During the 1960s, the activities were largely devoted to the Apollo Program , with the Saturn family of launch vehicles designed and tested at MSFC. MSFC also had a major role in post-Apollo activities, including Skylab , the Space Shuttle , and Spacelab and other experimental activities which made use of the Shuttle's cargo bay. After

4850-422: The early activities, Highwater and Pegasus, were performed on a non-interference basis while testing the Saturn I vehicle. In Project Highwater , a dummy Saturn I second stage was filled with 23,000 US gallons (87 m ) of water as ballast. After burnout of the first stage, explosive charges released the water into the upper atmosphere. The project answered questions about the diffusion of liquid propellants in

4947-432: The escape rocket fired, the capsule deployed its drogue parachute ; it then deployed the main and reserve parachutes, ejecting the radio antenna fairing in the process. In the end, all that had been launched was the escape rocket. However, the fully fueled and powered-up Redstone was now sitting on LC-5 with nothing securing it to the pad. Various other dangers existed as well, such as the capsule's retrorocket package and

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5044-626: The event that a rocket was destroyed at high altitude. Highwater experiments were carried out in April and November 1962. Under the Pegasus Satellite Program , the Saturn I second stage was instrumented to study the frequency and penetration depth of micrometeoroids . Two large panels were folded into the empty stage and unfolded in orbit, presenting 2,300 ft (210-m ) of instrumented surface. Three Pegasus satellites were launched during 1965, with each one staying in orbit from 3 to 13 years. There were six Apollo missions that landed on

5141-648: The expected time of the Redstone's actual engine cutoff. MR-1 was never used for another flight after its return to Huntsville. It was eventually put on display at the Space Orientation Center of Marshall Space Flight Center. Mercury spacecraft #2, used in both the Mercury-Redstone 1 and Mercury-Redstone 1A flights, was displayed at the NASA Ames Exploration Center , Moffett Federal Airfield , near Mountain View , California . As of July 13, 2022, it

5238-520: The explosive bolts holding it to the booster for separation. In the case of MR-1, the capsule did jettison the escape rocket as it was designed to, but the separation sequence did not occur. The capsule was designed to suspend this separation until the vehicle's acceleration had almost ceased, so that the capsule would not be hit by a still-accelerating launch vehicle. This would happen when the capsule's acceleration sensors detected an acceleration approaching 0  g , which it would normally experience after

5335-422: The first artificial Earth orbiting satellite, on October 4, 1957. This was followed on November 3 with the second satellite, Sputnik 2 . The United States attempted a satellite launch on December 6 using the NRL's Vanguard rocket, but it barely struggled off the ground, then fell back and exploded. On January 31, 1958, after finally receiving permission to proceed, von Braun and the ABMA space development team used

5432-564: The first firing of a SRB took place and tests on the ET began at MSFC. The first Enterprise OV flight, attached to a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), was in February 1977; this was followed by free landings in August and October. In March 1978, the Enterprise OV was flown atop a SCA to MSFC. Mated to an ET, the partial Space Shuttle was hoisted onto the modified Saturn V Dynamic Test Stand where it

5529-442: The ground. In contrast, reusable launch vehicles are designed to be recovered intact and launched again. The Falcon 9 is an example of a reusable launch vehicle. As of 2023, all reusable launch vehicles that were ever operational have been partially reusable, meaning some components are recovered and others are not. This usually means the recovery of specific stages, usually just the first stage, but sometimes specific components of

5626-825: The late 1960s, but funding did not become available for some time. Using Atlas-Centaur launch vehicles, three highly successful missions were flown: HEAO 1 in August 1977, HEAO 2 (also called the Einstein Observatory) in November 1978, and HEAO 3 in September 1979. Fred A. Speer was the HEAO project manager for MSFC. Other MSFC-managed space science projects in the 1970s included the Laser Geodynamics Satellite (LAGEOS) and Gravity Probe A . In LAGEOS, laser beams from 35 ground stations are reflected by 422 prismatic mirrors on

5723-514: The launch site (RTLS). Both the US Space Shuttle —with one of its abort modes —and the Soviet Buran had a designed-in capability to return a part of the launch vehicle to the launch site via the mechanism of horizontal-landing of the spaceplane portion of the launch vehicle. In both cases, the main vehicle thrust structure and the large propellant tank were expendable , as had been

5820-505: The launch site. The Falcon Heavy is similarly designed to reuse the three cores comprising its first stage. On its first flight in February 2018, the two outer cores successfully returned to the launch site landing pads while the center core targeted the landing platform at sea but did not successfully land on it. Blue Origin developed similar technologies for bringing back and landing their suborbital New Shepard , and successfully demonstrated return in 2015, and successfully reused

5917-607: The launch tower, and Ship 30, the upper stage, successfully landing in the Indian Ocean. Marshall Space Flight Center Marshall Space Flight Center (officially the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center ; MSFC ), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama ( Huntsville postal address), is the U.S. government 's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. As the largest NASA center, MSFC's first mission

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6014-479: The loss of the station's micrometeoroid shield/sun shade and one of its main solar panels. This loss was partially corrected by the first crew, launched May 25; they stayed in orbit with Skylab for 28 days. Two additional missions followed with the launch dates of July 28 and November 16, with mission durations of 59 and 84 days, respectively. Skylab, including the ATM, logged about 2,000 hours on some 300 scientific and medical experiments. The last Skylab crew returned to

6111-517: The many successes at the MSFC'S predecessor, the ABMA , where von Braun had been the Technical Director. The initial technical leaders of the new MSFC had all been former colleagues of von Braun starting back in Germany before World War II. These technical department and/ or division heads were as follows: With the exception of Koelle, all of the technical department and/ or division heads had come to

6208-509: The new center at Redstone Arsenal. Beginning in April 1950, about 1,000 persons were involved in the transfer, including von Braun's group. At this time, R&D responsibility for guided missiles was added, and studies began on a medium-range guided missile that eventually became the PGM-11 Redstone . Over the next decade, missile development at Redstone Arsenal greatly expanded. However, von Braun kept space firmly in his mind, and published

6305-403: The next morning, when the flight batteries in the rocket and capsule had drained and the Redstone's liquid oxygen had boiled off, before they could work on the rocket and render it safe. Investigation revealed that the Redstone's engine shutdown was caused by two of its electrical cables separating in the wrong order. These cables were a control cable, which provided various control signals, and

6402-565: The orbiting space station hardware as well as overall systems engineering and integration. For testing and mission simulation, a 75-foot (23 m)-diameter water-filled tank, the Neutral Buoyancy Facility , was opened at MSFC in March 1968. Engineers and astronauts used this underwater facility to simulate the weightlessness (or zero-g) environment of space. This was particularly used in training astronauts in activities in zero-g work, especially spacewalks . The Orbital Workshop

6499-482: The pad. Alarms were immediately sounded at LC-5, but the Redstone didn't explode. Instead it merely sat in place on the launch pad, after which an unusual sequence of events happened. Immediately after the Redstone's engine shut down, the Mercury capsule's escape rocket jettisoned itself, leaving the capsule attached to the Redstone booster. The escape rocket rose to an altitude of 4,000 feet (1,200 m) and landed about 400 yards (370 m) away. Three seconds after

6596-402: The proposed activities being abandoned, but an orbital workshop remained of interest. In December 1965, MSFC was authorized to begin the Orbital Workshop as a formal project. At a meeting at MSFC on August 19, 1966, George E. Mueller , NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, pinned down the final concept for the major elements. MSFC was assigned responsibility for the development of

6693-531: The same IU configuration was used on the Saturn I and IB. With IBM as the prime contractor, the IU was the only full Saturn component manufactured in Huntsville. The first Saturn V test flight was made on November 9, 1967. On July 16, 1969, as its crowning achievement in the Apollo space program, a Saturn V vehicle lifted the Apollo 11 spacecraft and three astronauts on their journey to the Moon. Other Apollo launches continued through December 6, 1972. The last Saturn V flight

6790-546: The same booster on a second suborbital flight in January 2016. By October 2016, Blue had reflown, and landed successfully, that same launch vehicle a total of five times. The launch trajectories of both vehicles are very different, with New Shepard going straight up and down, whereas Falcon 9 has to cancel substantial horizontal velocity and return from a significant distance downrange. Both Blue Origin and SpaceX also have additional reusable launch vehicles under development. Blue

6887-549: The satellite to track movements in the Earth's crust. The measurement accuracy is a few centimeters and it tracks the movement of tectonic plates with comparable accuracy. Conceived and built at MSFC, the LAGEOS was launched by a Delta rocket in May 1976. Gravity Probe A, also called the Redshift Experiment, used an extremely precise hydrogen maser clock to confirm part of Einstein's general theory of relativity . The probe

6984-456: The shorter cable designed for Mercury-Redstone. This control cable had been clamped to compensate for its greater length, but when the vehicle lifted off, the clamping did not work as planned and the control cable separation was delayed, eventually occurring about 29 milliseconds after the power cable had separated. During this brief interval, the lack of electrical grounding caused a substantial current to flow through an electrical relay which

7081-428: The standard procedure for all orbital launch vehicles flown prior to that time. Both were subsequently demonstrated on actual orbital nominal flights, although both also had an abort mode during launch that could conceivably allow the crew to land the spaceplane following an off-nominal launch. In the 2000s, both SpaceX and Blue Origin have privately developed a set of technologies to support vertical landing of

7178-450: The surface of the Earth. To reach orbit, the vehicle must travel vertically to leave the atmosphere and horizontally to prevent re-contacting the ground. The required velocity varies depending on the orbit but will always be extreme when compared to velocities encountered in normal life. Launch vehicles provide varying degrees of performance. For example, a satellite bound for Geostationary orbit (GEO) can either be directly inserted by

7275-485: The test flights also carried important auxiliary scientific experiments. The Saturn IB (alternatively known as the Uprated Saturn I) also had two propulsion stages and an instrument unit. The first stage (S-IB) also had eight H-1 engines with four gimballed, but the stage had eight fixed fins of equal size fitted to the sides to provide aerodynamic stability. The second stage (S-IVB) had a single J-2 engine that gave

7372-529: The three propulsion stages were the "muscle" of the Saturn V, the Instrument Unit (IU) was the "brains." The IU was on a 260-inch (6.6-m) diameter, 36-inch (91-cm) high, ring that was held between the third propulsion stage and the LM. It contained the basic guidance system components – a stable platform, accelerometers, a digital computer, and control electronics – as well as radar, telemetry, and other units. Basically

7469-526: Was a 1,500-mile (2,400 km), single-stage missile that was started the previous year; intended for both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, this was designated the PGM-19 Jupiter . Guidance component testing for this Jupiter intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) began in March 1956 on a modified Redstone missile dubbed Jupiter A while re-entry vehicle testing began in September 1956 on a Redstone with spin-stabilized upper stages. This ABMA developed Jupiter-C

7566-486: Was a major activity at MSFC. Alex A. McCool, Jr. was the first manager of MSFC's Space Shuttle Projects Office. Throughout 1980, engineers at MSFC participated in tests related to plans to launch the first Space Shuttle. During these early tests and prior to each later Shuttle launch, personnel in the Huntsville Operations Support Center monitored consoles to evaluate and help solve any problems at

7663-460: Was about 18 ft (5.5 m) in length, massed between 6,000 and 7,000 lb (2,700 and 3,200 kg), and carried some 3,000 lb (1,400 kg) of experiments for X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy and cosmic-ray investigations. The project provided insights into celestial objects by studying their high-energy radiation from space. Scientists from across the US served as principal investigators . The HEAO spacecraft concept originated in

7760-479: Was appointed as the Center's first NASA Director. Eberhart Rees, who was a former associate of von Braun from Germany, was also appointed as von Braun's Deputy for Research and Development. At the time of the creation of the MSFC, 4,670 civilian employees, about $ 100 million worth of buildings and equipment, and 1,840 acres (7.4 km ) of land were transferred from AOMC/ABMA to the new MSFC. The official opening date of

7857-489: Was built into the propellant tanks of a Saturn V third stage, being fully refitted on the ground. It was renamed Skylab in February 1970. Two were built – one for flight and the other for testing and mission simulation in the Neutral Buoyancy Facility. Leland F Belew served for eight years as the overall Skylab program director. Another AAP project that survived was a solar observatory, originally intended to be

7954-415: Was canceled due to last-minute problems with the capsule, so launching was rescheduled for November 21. On that day, following a normal countdown, the Mercury-Redstone's engine ignited on schedule at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (14:00  GMT ). However, the engine shut down immediately after lift-off from the launch pad. The rocket only rose about 4 inches (10 cm) before settling back onto

8051-519: Was carried on the last three missions, allowing an area similar in size to Manhattan Island to be explored. Outbound they carried an ALSEP to be set up; on the return trip, they carried more than 200 pounds of lunar rock and soil samples. Saverio "Sonny" Morea was the LRV project manager at MSFC. The Apollo Applications Program (AAP) involved science-based crewed space missions using surplus Apollo equipment. The lack of interest by Congress resulted in most of

8148-587: Was completed, detailing plans and schedules for a series of scientific satellites. However, the Army's official role in the U.S. space satellite program was delayed after higher authorities elected to use the Vanguard rocket then being developed by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). In February 1956, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) was established. One of the primary programs

8245-433: Was composed of a Redstone rocket first stage and two upper stages for RV tests or three upper stages for Explorer satellite launches. ABMA had originally planned the 20 September 1956 flight as a satellite launch but, by direct intervention of Eisenhower, was limited to the use of 2 upper stages for an RV test flight traveling 3,350 mi (5,390 km) downrange and attaining an altitude of 682 mi (1,098 km). While

8342-487: Was developing the Saturn launch vehicles for the Apollo program . Marshall has been the lead center for the Space Shuttle main propulsion and external tank ; payloads and related crew training; International Space Station (ISS) design and assembly; computers, networks, and information management; and the Space Launch System . Located on the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, MSFC is named in honor of General of

8439-414: Was first tested in flight on October 27, 1961. The first stage (S-I) had a cluster of eight H-1 engines, giving approximately 1.5-million-pounds thrust total. The four outboard engines were gimbaled to allow vehicle steering. The second stage (SIV) had six gimbaled LR10A-3 engines, producing a combined 90-thousand-pounds thrust. Ten Saturn Is were used in flight-testing of Apollo boilerplate units. Five of

8536-508: Was launched in June 1976, by a Scout rocket, and remained in space for near two hours, as intended. On January 5, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon announced plans to develop the Space Shuttle , a reusable Space Transportation System (STS) for routine access to space. The Shuttle was composed of the Orbiter Vehicle (OV) containing the crew and payload, two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), and

8633-444: Was mainly collected on special photographic film; during the Skylab missions, the film had to be changed out by astronauts in spacewalks . On May 14, 1973, the 77-ton (70,000-kg) Skylab was launched into a 235-nautical-mile (435-km) orbit by the last flown Saturn V. Saturn IB vehicles with their CSMs were used to launch three-person crews to dock with Skylab. Severe damage was sustained during Skylab launch and deployment, resulting in

8730-521: Was on May 14, 1973, in the Skylab Program (described later). A total of 15 Saturn Vs were built; 13 functioned flawlessly, and the other two remain unused. Wernher von Braun believed that the personnel designing the space vehicles should have direct, hands-on participation in the building and testing of the hardware. For this, MSFC had facilities where prototypes of every type of Saturn vehicle were fabricated. Large, special-purpose computers were used in

8827-460: Was returned to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville , Alabama , and was held in reserve. A new test flight was scheduled, Mercury-Redstone 1A (MR-1A), which would use a new Mercury-Redstone rocket, numbered MR-3. MR-1's Mercury spacecraft, #2, was undamaged, so it was reused for MR-1A, together with the escape rocket from spacecraft #8 and the antenna fairing from spacecraft #10. To prevent

8924-593: Was selected as the Saturn V rocket manufacturing site. A 13,500 acres (55 km ) isolated area in Hancock County, Mississippi was selected to conduct Saturn tests. Known as the Mississippi Test Facility (later renamed the John C. Stennis Space Center ), this was primarily to test the vehicles built at the rocket factory . From the start, MSFC has had strong research projects in science and engineering. Two of

9021-543: Was subjected to a full range of vibrations comparable to those in a launch. The first spaceworthy Space Shuttle, Columbia , was completed and placed at the KSC for checking and launch preparation. On April 12, 1981, the Columbia made the first orbital test flight. The Space Shuttle was the most complex spacecraft ever built. From the start of the Shuttle program in 1972, the management and development of Space Shuttle propulsion

9118-416: Was supposed to trigger normal engine cut-off at the end of powered flight. This relay tripped, causing the Redstone to shut off its engine and send a "normal cut-off" signal to the capsule. Under normal circumstances, when the capsule received this signal during a flight, it would do two things: it would jettison its escape rocket, which was no longer of any use, and after the escape rocket had flown clear, fire

9215-462: Was the BECO president, Joseph C. Moquin the executive vice president, William A. Girdini led the engineering design and test work, and Raymond C. Watson, Jr., directed the research and advanced systems activities. Cummings Research Park , the second largest park of this type in the US, was named for Cummings in 1973. On May 25, 1961, just 20 days after Shepard's flight, President John F. Kennedy committed

9312-641: Was the final preparation of a Redstone rocket for Project Mercury to lift a space capsule carrying the first American into space. Originally scheduled to take place in October 1960, this was postponed several time and on May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard made America's first sub-orbital spaceflight . By 1965, MSFC had about 7,500 government employees. In addition, most of the prime contractors for launch vehicles and related major items (including North American Aviation , Chrysler , Boeing , Douglas Aircraft , Rocketdyne , and IBM ) collectively had approximately

9409-596: Was used to place a 4-kilogram payload ( TRICOM-1R ) into orbit in 2018. Orbital spaceflight requires a satellite or spacecraft payload to be accelerated to very high velocity. In the vacuum of space, reaction forces must be provided by the ejection of mass, resulting in the rocket equation . The physics of spaceflight are such that rocket stages are typically required to achieve the desired orbit. Expendable launch vehicles are designed for one-time use, with boosters that usually separate from their payload and disintegrate during atmospheric reentry or on contact with

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