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How much does the saturn v weigh?

Short answer

A fully fuelled Saturn V weighed about 2,900 tonnes (some 6.4 million lb) at liftoff for the Apollo lunar missions, with propellant accounting for almost all of it. The vehicle stood 110.6 m (363 ft) tall and could place about 118 tonnes into low Earth orbit, a figure no operational rocket has matched since.

How much does the saturn v weigh?
Saturn V AS-506 lifts off from Kennedy Space Center with Apollo 11, 16 July 1969

Where the mass was

Almost 90 per cent of the Saturn V on the pad was propellant. The first stage, the S-IC, held about 2,100 tonnes of kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen and weighed close to 2,300 tonnes fuelled, against a dry mass of around 130 tonnes. The second stage, the S-II, carried roughly 450 tonnes of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for a fuelled mass near 480 tonnes. The third stage, the S-IVB, added about 120 tonnes, and the Apollo command and service module plus the lunar module came to some 45 tonnes. Together with the instrument unit and adapters, the stack reached about 2,900 tonnes at ignition; Apollo 11's official liftoff weight was recorded at 2,938 tonnes (6,477,875 lb).

Lifting that weight

Five F-1 engines produced about 34 MN (7.6 million lbf) of thrust at sea level, giving a thrust-to-weight ratio of only about 1.2 at liftoff. The rocket therefore rose slowly at first, clearing the launch tower in around twelve seconds while burning propellant at more than 13 tonnes per second. As the tanks emptied, the vehicle became lighter and acceleration increased; the first stage was discarded after about 160 seconds, by which point most of the launch mass was already gone.

What reached orbit

Of the 2,900 tonnes on the pad, about 118 tonnes ended up in low Earth orbit: the partly fuelled S-IVB stage and the Apollo spacecraft. After the trans-lunar injection burn, the payload sent towards the Moon was roughly 45 tonnes. The Skylab launch in 1973 used a two-stage Saturn V to put the 77-tonne station into orbit, the heaviest single object the rocket ever delivered.

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