Spacecraft paint jobs

After building a Lego set of the Saturn V, moon lander, Apollo capsule and moon
buggy last night, I got to wondering about the colors scheme of say, the Saturn
V. I was wondering why, on a big, white rocket, they have the black panels
scattered about. Is it just for aesthetics or is there a reason for it? Thanks.

wrote:

After building a Lego set of the Saturn V, moon lander, Apollo capsule and
moon
buggy last night, I got to wondering about the colors scheme of say, the
Saturn
V. I was wondering why, on a big, white rocket, they have the black panels
scattered about. Is it just for aesthetics or is there a reason for it?
Thanks.

The painted black patterns are for ground and aircraft tracking from launch
through orbital insertion. It makes it easier for engineers who review post
flight film of a launch to see how the rocket is rolling, etc as well as
providing points of references if say, a single engine of a cluster of five
fails.

T.B.

"OM" wrote:

The painted black patterns are for ground and aircraft tracking from
launch
through orbital insertion. It makes it easier for engineers who review
post
flight film of a launch to see how the rocket is rolling, etc as well as
providing points of references if say, a single engine of a cluster of
five
fails.

...I tried to find the thread from about 10 years ago where we
discussed this, but these days finding things on Google Groups isn't
as easy as it used to be. I suspect there's something broken in the
search engine and/or posts have been lost(*). But IIRC, there were
thermal issues involved in some of the striping WRT keeping
condensation arond certain LOX areas from freezing up too much. ISTR
what triggered that thread was why the S-IC paint scheme changed
between the test fit mockup (AS-500F) and Apollo 4 (AS-501).

The paint scheme was indeed changed before Apollo 4's launch due to thermal
issues as the black paint drew more unwanted heat on certain areas of the
first and third stages. If you look carefully at good close-up photos of
Apollo 4's first stage on the pad, you may notice that the longer black
patterns and black ring on the inter tank area of the first stage were
actually originally painted on that stage and painted over with white on the
"ribbed" inter tank section leaving a brighter white pattern on the first
stage inter tank area. This was done after the Saturn V was "stacked" in
the Vehicle Assembly Building but before it was rolled out to the pad.

Befo
http://www.apolloarchive.com/apg_thu...ID=KSC-67P-208

After:
http://www.apolloarchive.com/apg_thu...geID=S67-43593

T.B.

On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:55:40 -0400, wrote:

After building a Lego set of the Saturn V, moon lander, Apollo capsule and moon
buggy last night, I got to wondering about the colors scheme of say, the Saturn
V. I was wondering why, on a big, white rocket, they have the black panels
scattered about. Is it just for aesthetics or is there a reason for it? Thanks.

Okay, makes sense to me. Reflecting or absorbing sun/heat. ANother question: How
much weight was lost and payload weight gained when they stopped painting the
shuttles main fuel tank?

wrote:
After building a Lego set of the Saturn V,

I'm picturing this square Saturn V at the moment, looking something like
a flying skyscraper. :-D

moon lander, Apollo capsule and moon
buggy last night, I got to wondering about the colors scheme of say, the Saturn
V. I was wondering why, on a big, white rocket, they have the black panels
scattered about. Is it just for aesthetics or is there a reason for it? Thanks.


The black and white pattern was to allow ground cameras to track the
vehicle during ascent and note any rolling that was going on during
ascent and staging, as well as allowing exact distance between the
rocket and the ground camera to be determined by how large the black
markings appeared on the film of the launch.
The black markings on rockets go clean back to the WW II testing of the
German A4/V-2 missile.
The only time I've ever seen them on a large Russian rocket was on a
test booster for the Voskhod 2 spacecraft.
On the LM, black areas were to control internal temperature on various
parts of it as it was exposed to the bright sunlight on the surface of
Moon, and on the way there.
The black areas around the windows of the LM also served as anti-glare
panels so the crew didn't have to deal with sunlight reflections
blinding them as they descended for landing.

And now, as a special treat, all the Bible portrayed in Lego's:
http://www.thebricktestament.com/
Somehow, the parting of the Red Sea falls short of DeMille's version in
"The Ten Commandments":
http://www.thebricktestament.com/exo.../ex14_21b.html
http://www.thebricktestament.com/exo...d/ex14_22.html

Pat :-D

The Mighty T.B. wrote:

The painted black patterns are for ground and aircraft tracking from
launch through orbital insertion. It makes it easier for engineers
who review post flight film of a launch to see how the rocket is
rolling, etc as well as providing points of references if say, a
single engine of a cluster of five fails.

But unlike the earlier rockets, the only paint pattern on Saturn V that
has a pattern that lets you figure out roll in relation to the vehicle's
ascent is on the top of the second stage.
Other than that, all the paint patterns are symmetrical.
So if you're trying to figure out the roll orientation on stage1 after
separation if clouds obscure it, you had better hope you can read the
A,B,C,D markings on its four base fins.
Many earlier rockets had different paint markings on different sides of
the base of the first stage , so you could always determine which side
you were looking at on film (see V-2, Aerobee, and Jupiter C ).

Pat

OM wrote:
...I tried to find the thread from about 10 years ago where we
discussed this, but these days finding things on Google Groups isn't
as easy as it used to be. I suspect there's something broken in the
search engine and/or posts have been lost(*). But IIRC, there were
thermal issues involved in some of the striping WRT keeping
condensation arond certain LOX areas from freezing up too much. ISTR
what triggered that thread was why the S-IC paint scheme changed
between the test fit mockup (AS-500F) and Apollo 4 (AS-501).

Pat? Jorge? You guys remember that thread?


Not that one... Saturn IB did use a very involved paint scheme on its
first stage and its eight fins, which may have involved the four
external tanks that held kerosene instead of LOX, and desired heat
take-up on those, particularly from the central LOX tank chilling them.
A bitch to paint that stage right on a model.
Still, it could be worse; let's do a checkerboard:
http://ganymede.nmsu.edu/tharriso/saturn1b.jpg
And of course AMT never thought to include this decal for the roll
pattern on their 1/300th scale Mercury/Redstone model either, at least
on its re-release:
http://www.redstone.army.mil/history...stone_3_02.jpg
Now, that Monogram US Missile Arsenal set...now _that_ was a decal sheet!
That thing was ****in' _huge_ and had little decals right down to "US
Army" markings on the Hawk missile, which was around a inch and a
quarter long.

Pat

Pat

The Mighty T.B. wrote:

The paint scheme was indeed changed before Apollo 4's launch due to
thermal issues as the black paint drew more unwanted heat on certain
areas of the first and third stages. If you look carefully at good
close-up photos of Apollo 4's first stage on the pad, you may notice
that the longer black patterns and black ring on the inter tank area
of the first stage were actually originally painted on that stage and
painted over with white on the "ribbed" inter tank section leaving a
brighter white pattern on the first stage inter tank area. This was
done after the Saturn V was "stacked" in the Vehicle Assembly Building
but before it was rolled out to the pad.
The Soviets suffered somewhat the same problem with the N-1.
It started out with the first and second stages being overall green and
the third stage being half green and half white, then moved to the third
stage being overall white and the first two stages being mixed
white/green to prevent overheating in the Sun, then finally ended up
being pure white top-to-bottom: http://www.geocities.com/danimir.geo/n1.html

Pat

wrote:
Okay, makes sense to me. Reflecting or absorbing sun/heat. ANother question: How
much weight was lost and payload weight gained when they stopped painting the
shuttles main fuel tank?

I'm not sure about the specifics, but that was supposed to have
generated a worthwhile payload to orbit increase (since the ET is
effectively carried all the way into orbit) as well as reducing
production costs on the ET.
This sounds like something for Jorge R. Frank, and his much-thumbed
Jenkins Shuttle book in its most recent version. ;-)
It's interesting to speculate if the white paint over the foam on the
early ET's could have cut its permeability down to the point where you
wouldn't end up with liquid air forming between the foam and the skin of
the ET proper, and stop the "popcorning" during ascent.
When the ET was originally designed, it was supposed to have zero foam
shedding of any size whatsoever during ascent.
Production of the ETs nowadays consists of spraying on the foam, then
sanding it down to the desired thickness, so that the exterior "rind" is
removed, and the inner cell structure is exposed without a sealed exterior.
The white paint could have served as a new "rind" on the foam after
sanding, and sealed its cell structure against air and humidity.
Presently, that problem is dealt with by perforating the foam with vast
numbers of tiny holes, so that any liquid air can hopefully escape from
under it during ascent (as it goes back into a gaseous form due to
heating and decreasing air pressure) without causing it to de-bond from
the ET in pieces big enough to cause damage.

Pat

wrote:

On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:55:40 -0400, wrote:

After building a Lego set of the Saturn V, moon lander, Apollo capsule and
moon buggy last night, I got to wondering about the colors scheme of say,
the Saturn V. I was wondering why, on a big, white rocket, they have the
black panels scattered about. Is it just for aesthetics or is there a
reason for it? Thanks.

Okay, makes sense to me. Reflecting or absorbing sun/heat. ANother
question: How much weight was lost and payload weight gained when they
stopped painting the shuttles main fuel tank?


Well, if I remember correctly, it was quoted as 600 lbs saved.