page_title: Rocketdyne F-1
section_title: Recovery
hierarchical_section_title: Rocketdyne F-1 / Locations of F-1 engines / Recovery
caption_attribution_description: English: Recovered F-1 Engine injector from #3 engine on Apollo 12
context_page_description: The F-1 is a gas generator-cycle rocket engine developed in the United States by Rocketdyne in the late 1950s and used in the Saturn V rocket in the 1960s and early 1970s. Five F-1 engines were used in the S-IC first stage of each Saturn V, which served as the main launch vehicle of the Apollo program. The F-1 remains the most powerful single combustion chamber liquid-propellant rocket engine ever developed.
context_section_description: On March 28, 2012, a team funded by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, reported that they had located the F-1 rocket engines from an Apollo mission using sonar equipment. Bezos stated he planned to raise at least one of the engines, which rest at a depth of 14,000 feet (4,300 m), about 400 miles (640 km) east of Cape Canaveral, Florida. However, the condition of the engines, which have been submerged for more than 40 years, was unknown. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden released a statement congratulating Bezos and his team for their find and wished them success. He also affirmed NASA's position that any recovered artifacts would remain property of the agency, but that they would likely be offered to the Smithsonian Institution and other museums, depending on the number recovered.
  On March 20, 2013, Bezos announced he had succeeded in bringing parts of an F-1 engine to the surface, and released photographs. Bezos noted, "Many of the original serial numbers are missing or partially missing, which is going to make mission identification difficult. We might see more during restoration."  The recovery ship was Seabed Worker, and had on board a team of specialists organized by Bezos for the recovery effort. On July 19, 2013, Bezos revealed that the serial number of one of the recovered engines is Rocketdyne serial number 2044 (equating to NASA number 6044), the #5 (center) engine that helped Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to reach the Moon with the Apollo 11 mission.   The recovered parts were brought to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson for the process of conservation.
  In August 2014, it was revealed that parts of two different F-1 engines were recovered, one from Apollo 11 and one from another Apollo flight, while a photograph of a cleaned-up engine was released.  Bezos plans to put the engines on display at various places, including the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
  On May 20, 2017 the Apollo permanent exhibit opened at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA and displays engine artifacts recovered including the thrust chamber and thrust chamber injector of the number 3 engine from the Apollo 12 mission, as well as a gas generator from an engine that powered the Apollo 16 flight.
caption: Recovered F-1 engine injector from Apollo 12 mission on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Make": "Apple", "Image Model": "iPhone 7 Plus", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2017:06:18 20:30:48", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "2362", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[47, 31, 457/100]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[122, 17, 1174/25]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "29871/3586", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[21, 59, 623/25]", "GPS GPSSpeedRef": "K", "GPS GPSSpeed": "0", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "T", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "96339/419", "GPS GPSDestBearingRef": "T", "GPS GPSDestBearing": "96339/419", "GPS GPSDate": "2017:06:18", "GPS Tag 0x001F": "65", "Image GPSInfo": "5962", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "6368", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "11857", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/4", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:06:18 14:59:29", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:06:18 14:59:29", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3071/1427", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2159/1273", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-3379/2928", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "399/100", "EXIF SubjectArea": "[2432, 1436, 753, 756]", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "949", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "949", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3024", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[399/100, 33/5, 9/5, 14/5]", "EXIF LensMake": "Apple", "EXIF LensModel": "iPhone 7 Plus back dual camera 3.99mm f/1.8", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4236"}