Did the Saturn V use kerosene?
The Saturn V’s upper stages burned highly volatile liquid hydrogen (liquid oxygen was used in all three stages). The five-engine main booster held 203,400 gallon of RP-1. After firing, the engines emptied the giant fuel tank in 165 seconds. Kerosene fueled the Saturn V – and today’s latest rocket engines.
Is kerosene used as rocket fuel?
RP-1 (alternatively, Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) is a highly refined form of kerosene outwardly similar to jet fuel, used as rocket fuel. RP-1 provides a lower specific impulse than liquid hydrogen (LH2), but is cheaper, is stable at room temperature, and presents a lower explosion hazard.
What fuel did the Saturn V use?
liquid hydrogen fuel
It was the largest, most powerful rocket ever launched. With a cluster of five powerful engines in each of the first two stages and using high-performance liquid hydrogen fuel for the upper stages, the Saturn V was one of the great feats of 20th-century engineering.
Why did the Saturn V use kerosene?
The biggest reason is that, while Hydrogen provides the most energy per pound of FUEL, it doesn’t provide the most energy per bound of BOOSTER. Hydrogen required larger tankage, with increases weight and wind resistance. That’s why the Saturn V and most other boosters use kerosene & LOX for the first stage.
Why is kerosene used as the rocket nozzle coolant instead of oxygen?
The specific heat capacity of the fuel is higher than that of the liquid oxygen at the operating temperature/pressure, hence for the same rate of flow, using the fuel cools better and apart from any of the above-mentioned liquid/vapour/pressure issues.
What happened to Saturn 5 first stage?
When NASA’s mighty Saturn V rockets were launched on missions to Earth orbit and the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the five F-1 engines that powered each of the boosters’ first stages dropped into the Atlantic Ocean and sank to the seafloor. There they were expected to remain, discarded forever.