Apollo Spacecraft & Lunar Exploration Testing playlist:
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Wernher von Braun is featurned in this pre-flight film about Apollo 4, the first unmanned test of the Saturn V launch vehicle for Project Apollo. It was an “all up” test, all three stages S-IC, S-II, and S-IVB, were tested in the same flight. The mission was also known as SA-501, Apollo-Saturn 501, or AS-501. The J-2 engine of the S-IVB 3rd stage was shut down after the stage entered orbit, then restarted in flight to simulate trans-lunar injection. A Block I Command and Service Module (CSM) was carried, and the Command Module was accelerated to high speed to simulate re-entry from a lunar mission, and recovered.
Raw footage Apollo 4 pre-launch prep video:
Apollo 4 post-flight mission video:
Launch date November 9, 1967 12:00:01 UTC
Landing November 9, 1967 20:37:00 UTC North Pacific Ocean
Originally a public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
Wikipedia license:
Apollo 4, (also known as Apollo-Saturn 501 and AS-501), was the first unmanned test flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle, which was used by the Apollo program to send the first men to the Moon. Apollo 4 flew the S-IC first stage and S-II second stage for the first time, and demonstrated the first in-flight restart of the S-IVB third stage. The launch, at 7am EST on November 9, 1967 from Launch Complex 39, was the first from the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. The mission tested the complete Saturn V and Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) stack in what is known in the aerospace industry as an “all-up test”, meaning all stages were live and functional on the first flight. The mission was deemed a complete success by NASA.
This was the first flight of the Saturn V, and the first launch from Launch Complex 39, which was specifically built for the Saturn V. It would also be the first time that the S-IVB third stage would be restarted in Earth orbit, and the first time that the Apollo spacecraft would reenter the Earth’s atmosphere at the speed of a lunar return trajectory…
The payload was the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM), serial number 017. This was a Block I design meant for systems testing, not the Block II spacecraft designed for use with the Lunar Module (LM) on the actual Moon landings. However, several significant Block II modifications were made for certification, since no all-up Block II spacecraft would be flown before the first manned missions…
A dummy LM known as a Lunar Module Test Article, LTA-10R was carried as ballast to simulate the loadings of the LM on the launch vehicle….
Launch occurred at 1200 UTC on November 9…
The launch placed the S-IVB and CSM into a nearly circular 100-nautical-mile (190 km) orbit, a nominal parking orbit that would be used on the actual lunar missions. After two orbits, the S-IVB reignited for the first time, putting the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 9,297 nautical miles (17,218 km) and a perigee that would deliberately take it 45.7 nautical miles (84.6 km) below the Earth’s surface; this would ensure both a high-speed reentry of the Command Module, and atmospheric reentry and destruction of the S-IVB. The CSM then separated from the S-IVB and fired its Service Module engine to raise the apogee to 9,769 nautical miles (18,092 km) and a perigee of −40 nautical miles (−74 km). After passing apogee, the Service Module engine fired again for 281 seconds to increase re-entry speed to 36,545 feet per second (11,139 m/s), at an altitude of 400,000 feet (120 km) and a flight path angle of -6.93 degrees, simulating a return from the Moon.
The CM landed approximately 8.6 nautical miles (16 km) from the target landing site northwest of Midway Island in the North Pacific Ocean. Its descent was visible from the deck of the USS Bennington, the prime recovery ship…
