Project Apollo: The Beginnings | Mission Planning | Landing Site Selection | Earthbound Support Systems
Astronaut Selection and Training | The Saturn V | The Saturn 1B | The Apollo Spacecraft
Guidance and Navigation | Command and Service Modules | The Lunar Module
Assembling and Launching | Pathfinders | The Early Missions | Apollo 11, The First Landing
The Intermediate Missions | Apollo 15 Exploration | Apollo 16 Exploration | Apollo 17 Exploration
Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz | Conclusion

Saturn 1B

The early Apollo development flights including launches into earth orbit of manned and unmanned test vehicles. It required the power of the Saturn V to launch a CSM and a LM together but when the mission required only an unmanned or manned test flight into earth orbit the smaller Saturn 1B was used as a first stage with the Saturn S-IVb as a second stage. The Saturn 1B was built by the Chrysler Corporation at the Michaud assembly facility and used a cluster of eight Rocketdyne H1 liquid fuelled engines with a combined thrust of 1.6 million pounds. Apollo missions using the S-1B first stage booster were launched from pad LC-34 on the Cape Canaveral launch site

Apollo launches using the S-1B were:

• AS-201 Launch vehicle development. Sub-orbital
• AS-202 Launch vehicle development. Command module heat shield test
• AS-203 Launch vehicle development. Fluid dynamics test
• Apollo 5 Unmanned test of the Lunar Module
• Apollo 7 Manned test of the Command and Service Module
• Skylab 2 Launched first crew to Skylab Space Station
• Skylab 3 Launched second crew to Skylab Space Station
• Skylab 4 Launched third crew to Skylab Space Station
• Apollo-Soyuz Launched crew for rendezvous with Soviet Soyuz Spacecraft.