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Old 5th Oct 2010, 11:58
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RJ Kanary
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Sarver PA USA 40.711 N X 79.7749 W
Age: 69
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For D O Guerrero............

With three stages, it had MANY. The Saturn V unofficial nickname was "Cluster's Last Stand".All those engines were needed just to get the payload into a parking orbit.

But the vast majority of the trip was conducted with only ONE engine present.That single engine was in the Service Module.After the TLI, that's all there was to get them there and back.

( The lone exception to that of course was the use of the LEM descent engine on Apollo 13.)

From WikiPedia.........

" After one and a half orbits, the S-IVB third-stage engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the Trans Lunar Injection burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later the command/service module pair separated from this last remaining Saturn V stage and docked with the lunar module still nestled in the Lunar Module Adaptor. After the lunar module was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the third stage booster flew on a trajectory past the moon and into solar orbit.[7] "

RJ

Last edited by RJ Kanary; 5th Oct 2010 at 12:00. Reason: Undignified mis-spelling of PPRuNer's name
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