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The Apollo Saturn launch vehicle stood 363 feet tall and weighed more than 6 million pounds at ignition. Only the top 53 feet would travel to the Moon, and of that, only one small cone would come home. A NASA Apollo Digest film from the program's early days explains how the pieces worked together.
The stack
At the very top sat the launch escape system, a slender device that, if the launch went smoothly, was discarded early in flight. Below it came the three parts of the spacecraft:
| Module | What it was | Its fate |
|---|---|---|
| Command module | crew quarters, cockpit and headquarters for an eight-day voyage — the only part to return to Earth | splashes down with the crew |
| Service module | the spacecraft's "basement": fuel cells making electricity, radio antennas, storage for tools and experiments, fuel and oxidizer tanks, and the main engine for travel to the Moon and back | cast off as Apollo nears Earth |
| Lunar module | two vehicles in one: a descent stage with landing gear and a throttleable, gimbaled engine, and an ascent stage with its own engine and a cabin | descent stage left on the Moon; ascent stage left in lunar orbit |
Inside the command module, the atmosphere let the astronauts go without their bulky pressure suits most of the time — though for safety one crew member would always be suited.
The choreography
- At launch, the lunar module rode third in the stack, beneath the command and service modules.
- On the way to the Moon, the command and service modules pulled away about 100 feet, turned around, and came back to dock with the lunar module.
- At the Moon, the lunar module landed its crew. When their exploration was done, the ascent stage lifted off, leaving the descent stage behind, and rejoined the command module in orbit.
- The crew moved back into the command module, and the lunar module was left in lunar orbit as the spacecraft turned for home.
- Near Earth, the service module was abandoned, and the command module returned alone.
Three modules, each with its own job — as the film put it, "as man reaches for the moon."
Sources
Based on the NASA film Apollo Digest Series: Spacecraft for Apollo, from the NASA Image and Video Library, a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Лицензия: CC0 1.0 (общественное достояние) · По материалам images.nasa.gov
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