Oct 102021
 

A photo taken from the first stage of a Saturn I showing the second stage’s six RL-10 rocket engines firings, boosting the S-IV stage towards orbit. Also visible are four orange-yellow exhaust plumes from ullage rockets… solid rockets that provide just enough acceleration to the stage to settle the liquid propellants at the bottoms of the tanks (otherwise the turbines might suck down vapor rather than liquid and that would be a Very Bad Thing).

Photo was from a 1965 magazine advertisement for Pratt & Whitney, manufacturer of the RL-10 engine. The full rez scan of the ad has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-10 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.




 Posted by at 8:52 pm