The Saturn C-5N was a conceptual successor to the

Saturn V Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 196 ...

launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload ( spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and ...

which would have had a nuclear thermal third stage instead of the

S-IVB The S-IVB (pronounced "S-four-B") was the third stage on the Saturn V and second stage on the Saturn IB launch vehicles. Built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, it had one J-2 rocket engine. For lunar missions it was fired twice: first for Earth ...

used on the Saturn V. This one change would have increased the payload of the standard Saturn V to

Low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

from 118,000 kg to 155,000 kg. The conceptual Saturn C-5N was designed as an evolutionary successor to the Saturn V, intended for the planned crewed mission to Mars by 1980, it would have cut crewed transit times to Mars to about 4 months, instead of the 8–9 months of chemical rocket engines. However the Mars mission, along with all work related to the evolutionary successors of the Saturn V, was cancelled in 1972-3 by the

Nixon Administration Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment because of the Watergate Scanda ...

.NASA's Nuclear Frontier
''The Plum Brook Reactor Facility'', pp. 68, 73, 76, 101, 116, 129. The ground testing of the

Nuclear thermal rocket A nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) is a type of thermal rocket where the heat from a nuclear reaction, often nuclear fission, replaces the chemical energy of the propellants in a chemical rocket. In an NTR, a working fluid, usually liquid hydrog ...

engines intended for the Saturn C-5N's, in-space 3rd stage, still hold a number of combined rocket thrust and

specific impulse Specific impulse (usually abbreviated ) is a measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine (a rocket using propellant or a jet engine using fuel) creates thrust. For engines whose reaction mass is only the fuel they carry, specific impulse is ...

records. The concept of nuclear thermal rockets serving as the in-space rocket stage influenced the 1990s Project Timberwind.

References

External links

Encyclopedia Astronautica
C5N {{rocket-stub

See also

References

External links