Date: ca. 1958-1975
Country of Origin: United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 5 ft. 3/8 in. wide x 6 ft. 1 1/4 in. long x 3 ft. 11 in. diameter, 2000 lb. (153.42 x 186.06 x 119.38cm, 907.2kg)
Materials:
Chamber and nozzle coolant passages 347 stainless steel. Propellant tanks, lines, and valves, stainless steel. Pumps, aluminum alloys; turbine, Hastealloy. Injector, OHFC copper and 347 stainless steel.
Combustion chamber made of 292 stainless steel tubes. The assembly, except for inlet manifold, was furnaced brazed with gold brazing alloy. Injectors, furnaced brazed.
This is the H-1 liquid-fuel rocket engine, the first stage powerplant for the Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B launch vehicles, the precursors to the Saturn V that took men to the Moon in the Apollo program. The Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B were each fitted with eight H-1 engines in their first stages. The engine was developed and built by the Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation, Inc., and used RP-1 (kerosene) and liquid oxygen. The H-1 evolved from the Jupiter missile engine.
The version of the engine shown here developed about 188,000 lbs of thrust. The Saturn 1B launched Apollo 7 in 1968, Skylab missions in 1973, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. This engine was donated in 1968 to the Smithsonian by Rocketdyne.
Transferred from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
