page_title: Saturn I
section_title: Saturn I launches
hierarchical_section_title: Saturn I / Saturn I launches
context_page_description: The Saturn I was a rocket designed as the United States' first medium lift launch vehicle for up to 20,000-pound low Earth orbit payloads. The rocket's first stage was built as a cluster of propellant tanks engineered from older rocket tank designs, leading critics to jokingly refer to it as "Cluster's Last Stand". Originally intended as a near-universal military booster for use in the 1960s, its development was taken over from the Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1958 by the newly-formed civilian NASA. Its design proved sound and flexible. It was successful in initiating the development of liquid hydrogen-fueled rocket propulsion, launching the Pegasus satellites, and flight verification of the Apollo command and service module launch phase aerodynamics. Ten Saturn I rockets were flown before it was replaced by the heavy lift derivative Saturn IB, which used a larger, higher total impulse second stage and an improved guidance and control system. It also led the way to development of the super-heavy lift Saturn V which carried the first men to landings on the Moon in the Apollo program.
  President John F.
context_section_description: For further launches of Saturn-1 series vehicles, see the Saturn IB page.
caption: Saturn I rocket profiles SA-1 through SA-10
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