This brief film takes a look at Rocketdyne, the American rocket engine design and production company founded in 1955. It shows the engines they produced for the Saturn V launch vehicle and provides an in depth look at the newly designed nozzle. It is presented by Rocketdyne (:10). The film opens with the information that the Rocketdyne liquid propellant engines have been reliable in support of the national military and civilian aerospace programs (:25). The Saturn V vehicle (:34). Rocketdyne had developed two propulsion systems for this vehicle. The first is the high thrust kerosene fuel engine (:38) and the second being the high energy hydrogen fueled engine. The first stage of the moon rocket is powered by five F1 liquid repellant oxygen kerosene rocket engines (:46) and each of these produces more than 100,500,000 tons of thrust (:53). This engine was also the highest liquid propellant engine that had been developed thus far (1:09). The second stage was powered by five of their J-2 engines (1:14) and the third by a single J-2 engine (1:27). Footage follows from a camera set on the first stage of the uprated Saturn V launch vehicle and it shows the first two stages as they drop off (1:37) as well as the altitude ignition of the J-2 engine. The bell-shaped model nozzle is pointed to (2:01) which directs the flow of gases from the rocket engines. Engineers worked to reduce the nozzle length and improve efficiency which lead to the creation of aerodynamic nozzle (2:23). The two model nozzles are shown in comparison (2:33). The aerodynamic nozzle’s primary flow is controlled by the outer wall through atmospheric pressure and a secondary flow was introduced through the center of the annulus (2:41). An annular toroidal shaped combustion chamber was created in order to match the form of the new nozzle (3:06). In addition, the shorter length of the new nozzle allowed longer propellant tanks to be used (3:53). A span of the small sized designs that resulted from years of research and development follows (3:56). The film begins to conclude as the Rocketdyne liquid propellant engine is fired (4:16) and it ends at (4:36).
The F-1 is a gas generator-cycle rocket engine developed in the United States by Rocketdyne in the late 1950s and used in the Saturn V rocket in the 1960s and early 1970s. Five F-1 engines were used in the S-IC first stage of each Saturn V, which served as the main launch vehicle of the Apollo program. The F-1 remains the most powerful single combustion chamber liquid-propellant rocket engine ever developed.
The J-2 was a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine used on NASA’s Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles. Built in the U.S. by Rocketdyne, the J-2 burned cryogenic liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) propellants, with each engine producing 1,033.1 kN (232,250 lbf) of thrust in vacuum. The engine’s preliminary design dates back to recommendations of the 1959 Silverstein Committee. Rocketdyne won approval to develop the J-2 in June 1960 and the first flight, AS-201, occurred on 26 February 1966.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
