The H-1 liquid-fuel rocket engine was the first stage powerplant of the Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B launch vehicles, precursors to the Saturn V that took men to the Moon in the Apollo program. The Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B were each fitted with eight H-1 engines in their first stages. The engine used RP-1 (kerosene) and liquid oxygen and produced up to 205,000 pounds of thrust. The Saturn 1 first flew in 1961 while the last Saturn 1B was flown in 1975 for the low-Earth orbit Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. The H-1 was developed and built by Rocketdyne, a division of the North Amercian Rockwell Corp. This engine was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1970 from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
Transferred from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration