APOLLO 4: THE FIRST GIANT STEPS SATURN V ROCKET HISTORIC NASA FILM 71442

Video from the channel PeriscopeFilm about Apollo 4, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 11:42. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.

NASA film following the preparation and flight of Apollo 4, the first Saturn V launch. It shows the stacking of the three stages in High Bay 1 of the Vehicle Assembly Building, testing directed from Firing Room 1 of the Launch Control Center, with 218 consoles and 238 equipment racks, the rollout to the pad on the crawler-transporter, and the countdown demonstration test. It follows with liftoff, the stage separations filmed by onboard cameras, and the recovery of the capsule.

The footage was shot at Kennedy Space Center between the rollout to the pad on August 26 and the launch from Complex 39 on November 9, 1967, at 7:00. The film was produced after the mission, which it already presents as a success.

It was the first integrated test of the Apollo-Saturn stack: the first flight of the first and second stages, the first in-space restart of the third, and the first reentry at a speed higher than previous orbital flights. According to the narration, the 363-foot (about 110 m) vehicle lifted off with 7.5 million pounds of thrust, the third stage placed about 140 tonnes into parking orbit, and the spacecraft's engine raised the apogee to 11,232 miles (about 18,000 km). The capsule reentered at more than 25,000 mph (about 40,000 km/h) and splashed down in the Pacific 8 hours 36 minutes after liftoff, within sight of the aircraft carrier Bennington.