Comparisons
The Soviet counterpart of the Saturn V was the N-1 rocket. The Saturn V was taller, heavier and had greater payload capacity, while the N-1 had more liftoff thrust and a larger first stage diameter. The N1 never became operational; four test launches each resulted in catastrophic vehicle failure early in flight, and the program was canceled. The first stage of Saturn V used five powerful engines rather than the 30 smaller engines of the N-1. During two launches, Apollo 6 and Apollo 13, the Saturn V was able to recover from engine loss incidents. The N-1 likewise was designed to compensate for engine loss, but the system never successfully saved a launch from failure.
The three-stage Saturn V had a peak thrust of at least 7,650,000 pounds-force (34.02 MN) (SA-510 and subsequent) and a lift capacity of 118,000 kg to LEO. The SA-510 mission (Apollo 15) had a liftoff thrust of 7,823,000 pounds-force (34.80 MN). The SA-513 mission (Skylab) had slightly greater liftoff thrust of 7,891,000 pounds-force (35.10 MN). By comparison, the N-1 had a sea-level liftoff thrust of about 9,900,000 pounds-force (44 MN). No other operational launch vehicle has ever surpassed the Saturn V in height, weight, or payload capability. The closest contenders were the US Space Shuttle and the Soviet Energia.
The Space Shuttle generated a peak thrust of 30.1 meganewtons (6,800,000 lbf), and payload capacity to LEO (excluding the Orbiter itself) was 28,800 kilograms (63,000 lb), which was about 25 percent of the Saturn V's payload. Total mass in orbit, including the Orbiter, was about 112,000 kilograms (250,000 lb), compared to the Apollo 15 total orbital mass of the S-IVB third stage and Apollo spacecraft, of 140,976 kilograms (310,800 lb).
Energia had the same liftoff thrust as SA-513, 7,900,000 pounds-force (35.1 MN). The Energia had two test flights: one failure in 1987, and one successful launch of an unmanned Buran shuttle to orbit in 1988. The Energia and Buran programs were cancelled in 1993. Hypothetical future versions might have been significantly more powerful than the Saturn V, delivering 46 meganewtons (10,000,000 lbf) of thrust and able to deliver up to 175 tonnes (390,000 lb) to LEO in the "Vulkan" configuration. Planned uprated versions of the Saturn V using F-1A engines would have had about 18 percent more thrust and 137,250 kilograms (302,600 lb) payload. NASA contemplated building larger members of the Saturn family, such as the Saturn C-8, and also unrelated rockets, such as Nova, but these were never produced.
Some other recent launch vehicles have a small fraction of the Saturn V's payload capacity: the European Ariane 5 with the newest versions Ariane 5 ECA delivers up to 10,000 kg to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The US Delta 4 Heavy, which launched a dummy satellite on December 21, 2004, has a capacity of 13,100 kg to geosynchronous transfer orbit. The yet to be flown Atlas V Heavy (using engines based on a Russian design) delivers up to 29,400 kg to LEO and 8,900 kg to GTO.
Read more about this topic: Saturn V
Famous quotes containing the word comparisons:
“I don’t like comparisons with football. Baseball is an entirely different game. You can watch a tight, well-played football game, but it isn’t exciting if half the stadium is empty. The violence on the field must bounce off a lot of people. But you can go to a ball park on a quiet Tuesday afternoon with only a few thousand people in the place and thoroughly enjoy a one-sided game. Baseball has an aesthetic, intellectual appeal found in no other team sport.”
—Bowie Kuhn (b. 1926)
“Decade after decade, artists came to paint the light of Provincetown, and comparisons were made to the lagoons of Venice and the marshes of Holland, but then the summer ended and most of the painters left, and the long dingy undergarment of the gray New England winter, gray as the spirit of my mood, came down to visit.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“The surest route to breeding jealousy is to compare. Since jealousy comes from feeling “less than” another, comparisons only fan the fires.”
—Dorothy Corkville Briggs (20th century)