“SATURN APOLLO 501 IN HIGH BAY 1, WITH WORK PLATFORMS RETRACTED. VAB HIGH BAY 1.
5-24-67”
Note access arm No. 8 “Service Module (inflight)” directly behind the CSM. Access arm No. 9 “Command Module (preflight)” is to the far right. Speaking of the CSM, note also the lack of RCS thrusters on the SM. Kind of clue as to vehicle identification.
And, unless something else surfaces, maybe on the verso of a “S-67-XXXXX” version of this photo - if such exists - the following lame, I’m sure contemporary pablum is apparently what’s meant to pass as the official description/caption:
“This photograph depicts the Saturn V vehicle (SA-501) for the Apollo 4 mission in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). After the completion of the assembly operation, the work platform was retracted and the vehicle was readied to rollout from the VAB to the launch pad. The Apollo 4 mission was the first launch of the Saturn V launch vehicle. Objectives of the unmanned Apollo 4 test flight were to obtain flight information on launch vehicle and spacecraft structural integrity and compatibility, flight loads, stage separation, and subsystems operation including testing of restart of the S-IVB stage, and to evaluate the Apollo command module heat shield. The Apollo 4 was launched on November 9, 1967 from KSC.”
Surprisingly, the above, with a bullshit, probably arbitrarily assigned “NASA ID” of 6754387 is actually available at:
images.nasa.gov/details-6754387
Unfortunately, as with many others, the description has been propagated everywhere. While I’ve read MUCH worse, it’s merely a copy/paste from some Apollo 4 document, which doesn’t address the context of the photograph…that is, what’s actually going on…the REASON the photograph was taken.
With that, the recognition/correct identification of the content of this photograph, along with the date, hence its pertinence to the problematic history of the SA-501 vehicle, has been…take your pick: lost, overlooked, unrecognized, omitted…something unacceptable.
For starters, the NASA photo ninjas, especially at the time of the photo’s processing, i.e., 1967, should’ve recognized that the CSM atop the vehicle was NOT the flight CSM (CSM-017). It ALSO should’ve been easily/readily identified as M-11, the Flight Verification Vehicle (FVV), it having been photographed a bazillion times during 1966 as part of SA-500F photo documentation.
As if that weren’t enough, within the multiple regurgitations of the trials & tribulations of making Apollo 4 happen, there’s not a mention of M-11, other than within the following, which although incomplete, with its own errors, at least references it…ONCE:
“The third stage (S-IVB) was the first major component of Apollo 4 to be delivered at KSC. It arrived from Sacramento aboard the Guppy aircraft on 14 August 1966 and went immediately into a low bay of the assembly building for inspection and checkout. The following week the spacer and instrument unit arrived. On 12 September, as Peter Conrad and Richard Gordon prepared to blast off in Gemini 11, the barge Poseidon sailed into the Banana River with the first stage. Boeing gave it a lengthy checkout in the transfer aisle of the high bay before erecting the booster on 27 October. During the following week, technicians stacked the remaining launch vehicle stages, using the spool for the absent S-II. There were a few problems - the checkout of the swing arms took an extra two days and a cooling unit for the instrument unit sprang a leak - but the launch team, still counting on the mid-November delivery date for the S-II, hoped to roll the complete vehicle out to pad A by 13 January 1967.
By late November the Apollo Program Office had moved the S-II's arrival back to January, and the launch back to April. Since spacecraft 017 would not arrive for another three weeks, KSC erected the facilities verification model of Apollo on 28 November.
[The first linked black & white photograph by Cliff Steenhoff below, depicts such.]
This allowed North American to check out some of its spacecraft support equipment. The first week in December the memory core in a digital events evaluator failed after intermittent troubles; cracked solder joints were blamed. A hurried repair put the computer back on line.
The command-service module arrived at KSC on Christmas Eve and was mated to the launch vehicle on 12 January 1967. That tardy prima donna, the S-II stage, finally appeared on 21 January. Tank inspection, insulation, and engine work were in progress by the 23rd. Test crews found damaged connectors on three recirculation pumps and set about investigating the extent of the rework that would be necessary. While inspecting the liquid hydrogen tank on the second stage, the North American team found 22 cracked gussets. These triangular metal braces, used to support the horizontal ribs of the stage framework, had to be replaced. Plans to move the second stage into a low bay checkout cell on the 29th were temporarily set aside because of a late shipment of the aft interstage (the cylindrical aluminum structure that formed the structural interface between the first and second stages). The interstage arrived on 31 January, and by the end of the next day the stage was in a low bay cell with work platforms around it.
Despite the delay with the S-II stage, KSC officials expected to meet the new launch date in May. The fire on 27 January placed all schedules in question. Although Apollo 4 was an unmanned mission, NASA officials wanted to give command-module 017 a close examination. On 14 February, a week before the S-II could be inserted into a fully assembled vehicle, the spacecraft was removed from the stack and taken to the operations and checkout building. When inspection disclosed a number of wiring errors, KSC's Operations Office cancelled the restacking of the spacecraft. By 1 March electrical engineers had discovered so many wiring discrepancies that the test team stopped their repair work, pending a thorough investigation of all spacecraft wiring. Within two weeks the North American and NASA quality control teams recorded 1,407 discrepancies. While North American repaired about half of these on the spot, modifications, repair work, and validations continued into June. During the break technicians performed pressure tests on service module systems at pad 16. It would be mid-June, with the wiring modifications for the command module finally completed, before North American could remate the spacecraft and take it back to the assembly building.
As the extent of the wiring problems was not immediately recognized, the launch vehicle team forged ahead to recoup the time lost on the S-II stage. In mid-February Boeing's airframe handling and ordnance group removed the instrument unit and spacer from the 501 stack and on the 23rd erected the S-II. The operation involved incredibly close tolerances. To qualify crane handlers, Stanley Smith, Bendix senior engineer of the crane and hoist group, stated, "We give them a technical examination and then check their reflexes and response to commands in training sessions." During a mating, an operator and an electrician boarded the crane and another man helped guide movements from the floor by communicating with the operator via a walkie-talkie. Smith set a high goal for his team: "We strive to train our men to the point where they could conceivably lower the crane hook on top of an egg without breaking the shell."
After a stage was properly aligned on the Saturn stack, a crew of one engineer, two quality control inspectors, one chief mechanic, and eight assistants took eight hours to complete the mating. Three 30-centimeter pins on the second stage fitted into brackets located 120 degrees apart on the periphery of the first stage. Then the mechanics inserted 216 one-centimeter, high-strength fasteners into matching holes around the perimeter where the two stages joined. The team torqued the fasteners in a staggered sequence to secure the bolts evenly and ensure a uniform distribution of stress. The mating of the second and third stages was conducted in much the same manner. The 501 was now set up except for the missing CSM.
[This is where something about the FVV (M-11) being reincorporated into the stack should’ve been referenced.]
The lengthy delays with the flight hardware aided the Site Activation Board in its efforts to get LC-39 ready for its first launch. The board's first flow [see chapter 15-1] included firing room 1, mobile launcher 1, high bay 1, and the other facilities required for the support of Apollo 4 - 1,280 activities altogether. During the first quarter of 1967, PERT charts showed less than 1% of these activities behind schedule. The decision in mid-April to modify the LOX system on launcher 1 and pad A put five weeks of negative slack into the site activation schedule. The modifications were made necessary by excessive pressure in the LOX system. KSC engineers added an automatic bleed system, relief valve supports, and a block valve that prevented purging through the drain line. As continued vehicle problems further delayed the rollout, the five weeks of negative slack disappeared.
On 24 May the S-II stage was in trouble again. NASA announced it would be dismantled for inspection, consequent on the discovery of hairline cracks in the propellant tank weld seams on another S-II at the factory in California.
[The photograph is dated 5-24-67. If correct, then the image was taken as part of documenting preparations for destacking M-11 & the S-IVB in order to remove the S-II stage.]
Additionally, thanks to the remarkable “CAPCOM ESPACE” website:
“For Apollo 4, the M11 was placed on launcher 501 on November 28, 1966 and removed at the end of 1966 following delays in stage S2. It will be put back in place on April 6, 1967 and removed on May 26.”]
Above, along with much more good stuff, at:
www.capcomespace.net/dossiers/espace_US/apollo/vaisseaux/...
So, somewhere out there, there’s some documentation from which the above was gleaned. I probably don’t have it & certainly didn’t find it online.]
The additional checks were not expected to delay the flight of 501 "more than a week or so." By mid-June the inspection, which included extensive x-ray and dye penetrant tests, was completed and the stage returned to the stack. On 20 June, the command-service module was mechanically mated to the Saturn V, and 501 was - at last - a fully assembled space vehicle. A revised schedule on 21 July set rollout for mid-August. On 26 August 1967, the big rocket emerged from the high bay slightly more than a year after its first components had arrived at KSC, and a good six months after its originally scheduled launch date. It had been a year of delay and frustration, and the end was not yet.”
The above, other than the inserted (bracketed) astute comments, observations & additional useful links, at/from:
www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4204/ch19-3.html
Inexcusable, incompetent, confounding at least, considering the importance/significance of this vehicle. But then again, for an organization that seems to have “officially/formally” misidentified the Command Module on display at Expo ’67 – to this day – the oversight, ignorance & tacit mis/non-identification of a lowly FVV is both literally & figuratively a no-brainer. The buffoonery continues. At least this shit is so far back in the rearview mirror that no one remembers, those that did are probably dead, and no one now cares, or will in the future. No harm, no foul, all good. 👍
