#sa-211

[lonestarflight]

Workmen at the Marshall Space Flight Center's dock on the Ternessee River unload S-IB-211, the flight version of the Saturn IB launch vehicle's first stage, from the NASA barge Palaemon. It was towed to the static test stand in the west test area.

"Between December 1967 and April 1968, the stage would undergo seven static test firings in MSFC's S-IB static test stand. The S-IB, developed by the MSFC and built by the Chrysler Corporation at the Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, Louisiana, utilized eight H-1 engines and each produced 200,000 pounds of thrust."

Date: October 1967

NASA ID: 6760211, 6760213, 6760210, 6760216, 6760212

[lonestarflight]

"Workers at the Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, Louisiana install the H-1 engines into the S-IB-11 stage, the Saturn IB launch vehicle's first stage. Developed by the Marshall Space Flight Center and built by the Chrysler Corporation at MAF, the 90,000-pound booster utilized eight H-1 engines to produce a combined thrust of 1,600,000 pounds."

This S-IB stage was part of the SA-211 launch vehicle and was never used. It was on display at the Alabama Welcome Center on I-65 in Ardmore, Alabama in 1979. While there were plans to remove it for restoration, it was discovered to be too far gone and was dismantled for disposal earlier this year.

Date: 1967-68

NASA ID: 6757861

[lonestarflight]

The different configurations of the Saturn IB and the planned missions for each.

Several things of note:

This graphic shows the planned mission configuration for AS-201 through AS-212. The AS-2XX was the mission nomenclature before AS-204 was changed to Apollo 1. This change was requested by the Astronauts' wives to honor their husbands, who lost their lives in the fire. The plans before Apollo 1 disaster deserve its own post.

Only AS-204/Apollo 5 launched carrying only the Lunar Module (LM-1). There were plans for a second mission but after the success of the first, it was not needed.

After AS-205/Apollo 7, the rest of the Saturn IBs were placed into storage and refurbished for the Skylab and ASTP missions.

It's interesting AS-212 was scheduled to carry both an Apollo module and a Lunar Module as the Saturn IB did not have enough Delta-V to carry both into orbit. Nor did it have enough to launch a fully fueled Apollo CSM, as all missions carrying it had to be partially loaded.

Missing from this list is SA-213 and SA-214. Both were not completed before funding ran out and what was built (the S-IB stage), was scrapped. SA-212's S-IVB was converted into the backup Skylab space station (aka Skylab B) and its S-IB stage was scrapped.

SA-215 and SA-216 were cancelled before they were started in July 1968.

Date: 1968

NASA ID: 0100803

source