Sep 18 2009
The Power of the Saturn F-1 Engine
Last week we started a review of the power behind the Saturn V and started a look at the design of the F-1 engine that was used in the spacecraft. There were five of these monsters in the first stage and boy did they have a ferocious appetite for fuel!
Just the mechanics of one of these mighty engines was a marvelous invention for the time it was created. Fuel and oxidizer were forced into the combustion chamber by pumps that were driven by a gas generator and a turbine. The turbine was driven at 5500 RPM to produce 55,000 horsepower to run the pumps. The fuel pump produced 15,471 gallons of RP-1 fuel per minute and the oxidizer pump 24,811 gallons of liquid oxygen per minute. Fuel traveled through tubing to cool the turbine.
The F-1 engine burned 3,945 pounds of liquid oxygen and 1,738 pounds of RP-1 per second, producing 1,500,000 pounds of thrust. This consumption equaled a flow rate of 413.5 gallons of liquid oxygen, and 257.9 gallons of RP-1 per second – now, that was just one engine, remember there are five of these in the first stage.
The first stage fired for 2.5 minutes, at which it carried the vehicle to an altitude of 42 miles at a speed of 6,164 miles per hour. The combined propellant flow of all five engines was 3,357 gallons per second, which would empty a 30,000 gallon swimming pool in 8.9 seconds. Each F-1 engine had more thrust power than all three main space shuttle engines combined.
