Flight
Saturn-Apollo 3 launched at 17:45:02 on November 16, 1962, from Launch Complex 34. The only hold in the countdown sequence was for 45 minutes due to a power failure in ground support equipment. This mission was the first time the Saturn I rocket was launched with a full load of propellant, carrying approximately 750,000 pounds (340,000 kg) of fuel.
The vehicle's four inner H-1 engines shut down at 2 minutes 21.66 seconds after launch and an altitude of 38.19 miles (61.46 km), and its four outer engines shut down at 2 minutes 29.09 seconds and 44.19 miles (71.11 km); both sets burned slightly longer than was initially estimated, reaching a maximum velocity of 4,046 miles per hour (6,511 km/h). The vehicle continued to coast to an altitude of 103.91 miles (167.22 km) and range of 131.36 miles (211.41 km), at which point, 4 minutes 52 seconds after launch, officials sent a terminate command to the rocket, setting off several charges which caused the dummy stages of the vehicle to destruct. The first stage remained intact, though uncontrolled, until it impacted the Atlantic Ocean around 270 miles (430 km) from its launch site.
Read more about this topic: Saturn I SA-3
Famous quotes containing the word flight:
“AIDS was ... an illness in stages, a very long flight of steps that led assuredly to death, but whose every step represented a unique apprenticeship. It was a disease that gave death time to live and its victims time to die, time to discover time, and in the end to discover life.”
—Hervé Guibert (1955–1991)
“When the flight is not high the fall is not heavy.”
—Chinese proverb.