Saturn family

Saturn IB

The Saturn IB (pronounced "one B", also known as the Uprated Saturn I) was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It replaced the S-IV second stage of the Saturn I with the much more powerful S-IVB, able to launch a partially fueled Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) or a fully fueled Lunar Module (LM) into low Earth orbit for early flight tests before the larger Saturn V needed for lunar flight was ready.

Flights flown10
Success rate90%9/10
Payload to LEO21,000kg
Maiden flight1966-02-26
Peak year19663 flights

Saturn IB is built by National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States. It first flew on 26 February 1966 and last flew on 15 July 1975.

Flight record

10 records
90% success rate9 of 10 flown · 1 failed
1966peak 1966 · 3 flights1975
First flight1966-02-26
Latest flight1975-07-15
Failures1
Consecutive successes6
Fastest turnaround51d 2h

Payload

Per mission profile
Low Earth orbit21,000kg

Vehicle

IB spec
Stages2
Length43.2m
Diameter6.61m
Launch mass590t
Liftoff thrust7,100kN
Maiden flight1966-02-26
ReusableNo

Pads used

3 pads

Orbits delivered

2 orbits
Low Earth Orbit8Suborbital2

Launch history

10 launches
DateMissionPadOrbitOutcome
1975-07-15Saturn IB | Apollo-Soyuz Test ProjectLaunch Complex 39BLow Earth OrbitSuccess
1973-11-16Saturn IB | Skylab 4Launch Complex 39BLow Earth OrbitSuccess
1973-07-28Saturn IB | Skylab 3Launch Complex 39BLow Earth OrbitSuccess
1973-05-25Saturn IB | Skylab 2Launch Complex 39BLow Earth OrbitSuccess
1968-10-11Saturn IB | Apollo 7Launch Complex 34Low Earth OrbitSuccess
1968-01-22Saturn IB | Apollo 5Launch Complex 34Low Earth OrbitSuccess
1967-01-27Saturn IB | Apollo 1 (Failure before launch)Launch Complex 34Low Earth OrbitFailure
1966-08-25Saturn IB | Apollo AS-202Launch Complex 34SuborbitalSuccess
1966-07-05Saturn IB | Apollo AS-203Space Launch Complex 37BLow Earth OrbitSuccess
1966-02-26Saturn IB | Apollo AS-201Launch Complex 34SuborbitalSuccess

Specifications from Launch Library 2 by The Space Devs, launch records from Space Index. Derived figures are computed here; see sources and method.

Further reading: Wikipedia