Launch Vehicle
Saturn V
Apollo 11 launch. Credit: NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Key Facts
- Developer
- NASA Marshall Space Flight Center; built by Boeing (first stage), North American Aviation (second stage), Douglas Aircraft (third stage) and IBM (guidance)
- First Launch
- November 9, 1967 (Apollo 4, uncrewed)
- Status
- Retired
- Payload to LEO
- ~140,000 kg
- Payload to GTO
- N/A (never flown to that orbit)
- Payload to Escape
- ~43,500 kg to trans-lunar injection
- Total Launches
- 13
- Success Rate
- ~92% (12 successes, 1 partial failure, see Notable)
The Saturn V was the rocket that took astronauts to the Moon. Designed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, under the technical leadership of Wernher von Braun, it was built in three stages by three different companies, and each stage was a giant in its own right. Fully fueled, it weighed nearly 3,000 tonnes, and its five F-1 engines produced about 34.5 meganewtons of thrust at liftoff.
It flew 13 times between 1967 and 1973, all from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39. After two uncrewed tests, it launched Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to the Moon, in December 1968, and went on to carry every Apollo crew that followed, including all six landings. No Saturn V ever lost a crew or a payload.
Its last flight, in May 1973, launched the Skylab space station. Two more complete Saturn Vs were built for canceled Apollo missions but never flew. Today, three Saturn Vs, assembled from flight hardware and test stages, are on display at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Johnson Space Center in Houston and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville.
Variants
Three-stage Apollo version (12 flights); two-stage version that launched the Skylab space station (1 flight, 1973)
Notable Missions
Carried every crewed Apollo mission to the Moon, and the first rocket ever to send humans beyond low Earth orbit. Stood 111 m tall. Its five F-1 first-stage engines are the most powerful single-chamber liquid-fueled rocket engines ever built. As of 2026 still holds the record for the largest payload to low Earth orbit of any rocket flown. The only partial failure was Apollo 6, an uncrewed test in April 1968, when engine problems shut down two second-stage engines early. Its final flight launched Skylab in May 1973.
Beyond LEO Missions
3 missions tracked
Complete 3
Apollo 13: “Houston, We’ve Had a Problem”
Saturn V (SA-508)
Apollo 11: The First Footsteps on the Moon
Saturn V (SA-506)
Apollo 8 Mission: The First Humans to Leave Earth
Saturn V (SA-503)