Apollo+40: Godspeed, Apollo 11!

Apollo 11 accelerates through the sound barrier on its way to earth orbit.

LIFTOFF! At 9:32 AM, Apollo 11 takes to the skies. A few seconds before liftoff, the five massive F-1 engines of the Saturn V S-IC first stage ignited, generating the 7.6 million pounds of initial thrust necessary to send the two Apollo spacecraft to the moon.



The times that follow are Mission-Elapsed Time (hr:min:sec):

At 00:02:03, Mission Control told the crew that they were GO for staging; in the first two and a half minutes of flight, the S-IC stage consumed about 2,000,000 liters of propellants. At staging, Apollo 11 was 30 nautical miles high, and had travelled 35 nautical miles downrange.

Staging - the five J-2 engines of the S-II second stage are now driving Apollo 11 higher and faster.

At 00:04:00, Apollo 11 is still GO - 72 nautical miles high, 190 nautical miles downrange, velocity 11,000 feet per second.

5 minutes...GO! 6 minutes...GO! 7 minutes...GO! 8 minutes...GO! 9 minutes, second-to-third staging...GO! 10 minutes...GO!

Apollo 11 is 101 nautical miles up, 1,000 nautical miles downrange, velocity 23,128 feet per second.

At 00:11:42, the single engine of the S-IVB third stage shuts down, and Apollo 11 is in a safe earth orbit of 101.4 by 103.6 nautical miles, velocity 25,568 feet per second!

So far, so good!