The Saturn V instrument unit is a ring-shaped structure fitted to the top of the Saturn V rocket's third stage (S-IVB) and the Saturn IB's second stage (also an S-IVB). It was immediately below the SLA (Spacecraft/Lunar Module Adapter) panels that contained the Apollo Lunar Module. The instrument unit contains the guidance system for the Saturn V rocket. Some of the electronics contained within the instrument unit are a digital computer, analog flight control computer, emergency detection system, inertial guidance platform, control accelerometers, and control rate gyros. The instrument unit (IU) for Saturn V was designed by NASA at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and was developed from the Saturn I IU.[1] NASA's contractor to manufacture the Saturn V Instrument Unit was International Business Machines (IBM).[2]
One of the unused instrument units is on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. The plaque for the unit has the following inscription:[3][4]
The Saturn V rocket, which sent astronauts to the Moon, used inertial guidance, a self-contained system that guided the rocket's trajectory. The rocket booster had a guidance system separate from those on the command and lunar modules. It was contained in an instrument unit like this one, a ring located between the rocket's third stage and the command and lunar modules. The ring contained the basic guidance system components—a stable platform, accelerometers, a digital computer, and control electronics—as well as radar, telemetry, and other units.
The instrument unit's stable platform was based on an experimental unit for the German V-2 rocket of World War II. The Bendix Corporation produced the platform, while IBM designed and built the unit's digital computer.
View of IU-514 from the floor of UHCInstrument unit no. 514 at National Air & Space Museum, Udvar-Hazy Center, Dulles, Virginia; the nose of Space Shuttle Enterprise is visible at left.
^"Instrument Unit Fact Sheet, Saturn V News Reference." Changed December 1968. Page 2.
^Roger E. Bilstein. Stages to Saturn. The NASA History Series, 1996. Chapter 8. From Checkout to Launch: The Quintessential Computer. IBM is also identified as the Instrument Unit builder on the nameplate of IU-514 at Udvar-Hazy Center. This nameplate is at the top left of location 7.
^"Saturn V Instrument Unit (IU) | NASM TAP". copilot.si.edu. Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on 2019-04-04. Retrieved 2017-09-22.
^
"Saturn V instrument unit audio description". copilot.si.edu/. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2017-09-22.
and 22 Related for: Saturn V instrument unit information
of the Saturn IB. The instrumentunit that controlled the SaturnV shared characteristics with the one carried by the Saturn IB. The SaturnV was primarily...
during testing to verify the entire system. The SaturnV consisted of three stages and an InstrumentUnit (IU). The first stage, S-IC, delivered 7,610,000...
(LM), before the larger SaturnV needed for lunar flight was ready. By sharing the S-IVB upper stage, the Saturn IB and SaturnV provided a common interface...
Applications Program Saturn INT-20 Saturn INT-21 Includes S-II/S-IVB interstage Includes InstrumentUnit Final Report - Studies of Improved SaturnV Vehicles and...
super-heavy lift SaturnV which carried the first men to landings on the Moon in the Apollo program. President John F. Kennedy identified the Saturn I, and the...
redesigned to launch Skylab. The SaturnV's third stage was removed and replaced with Skylab, but with the controlling InstrumentUnit remaining in its standard...
Control was garbled, but the SaturnV continued to fly normally; the strikes had not affected the SaturnVinstrumentunit guidance system, which functioned...
The Saturn Ion is a compact car sold by Saturn between the 2003 and 2007 model years. Based on the GM Delta platform, the Ion replaced the Saturn S-Series...
astronauts to safety. SaturnVInstrumentUnit - Emergency detection Human-rating certification NASA Technical Note TN-D6487 (pdf), pp. 3, 6, vii v t e...
minutes before lifting off to rejoin Columbia. Apollo 11 was launched by a SaturnV rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16...
NASA. It also built the ST-124-M3 inertial platform used in the SaturnVInstrumentUnit which was built by the Navigation and Control Division in Teterboro...
take advantage of a favorable alignment of the two gas giants Jupiter and Saturn and the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, to fly near them while collecting...
States' Apollo Program and the second test of the SaturnV launch vehicle. It qualified the SaturnV for use on crewed missions, and it was used beginning...
potential was found to be +10 V, this became -100 V at sunset and sunrise, and -250 V at night. All deployed instruments would regularly detect exhaust...
produced as a result of meteoroid impacts on the surface of the Moon. Instruments on Pioneer 8 and Pioneer 9 were believed to have detected at least two...
Apollo spacecraft launched by the Saturn IB, and the Station with its solar observatory was launched by a SaturnV. The ATM was designed and construction...
Global Information
