How many Saturn V third stages still in orbit ?

How many of the Apollo Saturn V third stages (Saturn S-IV)
are still in orbit ?

Regards.
Pete

In earth orbit, I suspect none. Apollo orbital operations (i.e. Apollo
9) were at relatively low orbit, so eventually the orbit would decay
because of atmospheric drag and the S-IVB would reenter. Several
S-IVBs were targeted for lunar impact, I think beginning with Apollo
13. As for the rest (8, 10, 11, 12) . . . I think (and someone please
correct me) I think they ended up in solar orbit.

Dead right John, except that looking at the data it shows the Apollo 9
stage was also fired into solar orbit. Data for the orbits and all stages
can be seen in Apollo By The Numbers

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apol...f_Contents.htm



Adam http://adboo.com



"John" wrote in message
oups.com...
In earth orbit, I suspect none. Apollo orbital operations (i.e. Apollo
9) were at relatively low orbit, so eventually the orbit would decay
because of atmospheric drag and the S-IVB would reenter. Several
S-IVBs were targeted for lunar impact, I think beginning with Apollo
13. As for the rest (8, 10, 11, 12) . . . I think (and someone please
correct me) I think they ended up in solar orbit.

Here is what I have on the location of S-IV-B thrid stages of the
Saturn rocket booster
All Saturn V, except where noted.


Apollo 1 N/A (S-IVB was the 2nd stage - S1B)

Apollo 4 reentered Earth

Apollo 5 reentered Earth (S1B) (LM-1)

Apollo 6 reentered Earth April 25, 1968

Apollo 7 reentered Earth (S1B)

Apollo 8 Heliocentric Orbit (Solar orbit)

Apollo 9 Heliocentric Orbit

Apollo 10 Heliocentric Orbit

Apollo 11 Heliocentric Orbit

Apollo 12 Geocycronious Orbit (Earth orbit)/Heliocentric Orbit

Apollo 13 Impacted Moon

Apollo 14 Impacted Moon

Apollo 15 Impacted Moon

Apollo 16 Impacted Moon

Apollo 17 Impacted Moon

wrote in message
oups.com...
Here is what I have on the location of S-IV-B thrid stages of the
Saturn rocket booster
All Saturn V, except where noted.


Apollo 1 N/A (S-IVB was the 2nd stage - S1B)

Apollo 4 reentered Earth

Apollo 5 reentered Earth (S1B) (LM-1)

Apollo 6 reentered Earth April 25, 1968

Apollo 7 reentered Earth (S1B)

Apollo 8 Heliocentric Orbit (Solar orbit)

Apollo 9 Heliocentric Orbit

Apollo 10 Heliocentric Orbit

Apollo 11 Heliocentric Orbit

Apollo 12 Geocycronious Orbit (Earth orbit)/Heliocentric Orbit

Apollo 13 Impacted Moon

Apollo 14 Impacted Moon

Apollo 15 Impacted Moon

Apollo 16 Impacted Moon

Apollo 17 Impacted Moon


So the ones that impacted the Moon are still up there? Or have they
decayed/rotted away? I suppose there's no chance of seeing them with a
telescope?

On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 18:53:00 GMT, "Von Fourche"
wrote:

So the ones that impacted the Moon are still up there? Or have they
decayed/rotted away? I suppose there's no chance of seeing them with a
telescope?

No, the selenites will have recycled them by now.

In article .com,
John wrote:
In earth orbit, I suspect none. Apollo orbital operations (i.e. Apollo
9) were at relatively low orbit, so eventually the orbit would decay
because of atmospheric drag and the S-IVB would reenter...

Correct for AS-203 (Saturn IB unmanned test) and Apollos 4-7 (Apollo 6's
S-IVB was meant to go to higher altitude but failed to restart), except
substitute "quickly" for "eventually"; the altitudes were *quite* low, and
the spent stages were big and light and strongly affected by air drag.
(AS-201 and AS-202 were suborbital.)

Apollo 9's S-IVB did two more burns after spacecraft separation, and
ended up in solar orbit.

The Skylab-crew and ASTP S-IVBs were deorbited by propellant dumps through
the engine; people were starting to get concerned about space debris.
(Skylab's S-II, the only orbital S-II, was left to decay -- deorbiting it
was considered, but too many changes would have been needed and Skylab was
short of money -- and came down a few years before Skylab itself.)

Several
S-IVBs were targeted for lunar impact, I think beginning with Apollo 13.

Correct. Apollos 13-17 all impacted their S-IVBs on the Moon.

As for the rest (8, 10, 11, 12) . . . I think (and someone please
correct me) I think they ended up in solar orbit.

Again correct. The 8, 10, and 11 S-IVBs did lunar gravity assists into
solar orbit, and are presumably still out there. Apollo 12's S-IVB was
meant to do the same, but a small navigation error left it in a very high
Earth orbit; lunar and/or solar perturbations gradually changed this
orbit, and in March 1971 it achieved escape and entered solar orbit.

(Tracking had long since ceased, but we now know its fate, because in
April 2002 it came back! In early September 2002, a small object was
found in a very high Earth orbit, and was designated J002E3; later
observations and backtracking of its orbit established that it had entered
a high and unstable Earth orbit from solar orbit in April, that its size,
mass, and color matched that of an S-IVB, and that it had probably left a
similar Earth orbit in March 1971. The timing fits none of the other
S-IVBs. It again departed for solar orbit in June 2003.)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

hey I wonder what pieces of those crashed saturns would be worth as
collectibles

One day that would be possible and possibly profitable.

It could be a unmanned mission using rovers to collect parts and
placing them in a return container....

wrote:

hey I wonder what pieces of those crashed saturns would be worth as
collectibles

One day that would be possible and possibly profitable.

It could be a unmanned mission using rovers to collect parts and
placing them in a return container....

They hit the Moon at a velocity of about 7,000 mph ... what pieces
would be left other than vapor and dust?

wrote:
wrote:

hey I wonder what pieces of those crashed saturns would be worth as
collectibles

One day that would be possible and possibly profitable.

It could be a unmanned mission using rovers to collect parts and
placing them in a return container....

They hit the Moon at a velocity of about 7,000 mph ... what pieces
would be left other than vapor and dust?

Don't forget the chunks of whale meat.

Impact velocity would have been ~2 km/s which is about 1300 miles per
hour. There would be plenty of recognisable fragments around the
crater.

Reading the ALSJ I have noticed that many of the fragments found around
lunar craters were thought to be fragments of the impacting object. The
gravitational field of the moon isn't deep enough to cause the impactor
to vaporise.