Developed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center under the direction of Wernher von Braun. It was the largest in a family of liquid propellant rockets that solved the problem of getting to the moon. The three stage rocket was taller than a 36-story building and was the largest - most powerful rocket ever built. A total of thirty-two Saturns of all types were launched; with not one failing. Thirteen of these were Vs.
With a cluster of five powerful engines in each of the first two stages and using high-performance liquid hydrogen fuel for the upper stages - the Saturn V was one of the great feats of the 20th century engineering.
The first manned Saturn V sent the Apollo 8 astronauts into orbit around the moon in December 1968. In July 1969 a Saturn V launched the crew of Apollo 11 to the first manned landing on the moon.
