The first Saturn V thundered off the pad on Apollo 4
On this day · 9 November 1967
NASA gambled on testing all three stages of its Moon rocket at once, and the uncrewed giant worked on its first try.
At 7 a.m. on November 9, 1967, the 363-foot Saturn V rose off Pad 39A at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on its maiden flight, the uncrewed mission known as Apollo 4. Five F-1 engines lit at once, generating 7.5 million pounds of thrust, a roar so violent it rained debris and ceiling tiles on a nearby press site.
NASA had chosen a bold strategy called “all-up” testing, flying every stage live on the first attempt rather than proving them one at a time. The risk paid off.
Proving the Saturn V worked was a giant leap toward the Moon.
The rocket performed flawlessly, sending an Apollo command module on a looping flight that splashed down in the Pacific less than nine hours later. With the launch vehicle validated, the path to landing astronauts on the Moon before the decade’s end was suddenly within reach.
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