Rocket

Saturn V

Building the LEGO NASA Apollo Saturn V

May 2, 2019 Design Photos

It so happens that every time I pick a LEGO model I cannot help but feel anxious to see how the outcome might turn out. Although, to be honest, halfway through, the process starts feeling mundane when the activity doesn’t exactly line up with my expectations of achieving the target. This one philosophy of building a LEGO — that of navigating through untenable ambiguity, always provides me with the ultimate dopamine to take up & finish LEGO creations with patience. I call it ‘Brickosophy’. By no means would I consider building a LEGO an easy task of sticking the bricks together. It might seem like a simple job of following the guide book and following the detailed illustrations, but it’s not that straightforward too. It requires perseverance and bucket loads of patience.

You may have heard about the LEGO Ideas NASA Apollo Saturn V assembly and I will spare the details just to keep this concise, but I have to say, it was a fantastic experience assembling this marvellous engineering effort that transported humanity to the Moon and back to earth safely. So at one point while assembling this LEGO set and while I was completing the first stage itself the plans went awry because I fixed a single pivoting brick in the wrong hole. It sent me into a tizzy and after struggling to get it right I had to suspend my work for the day. I had to backtrack by disassembling the pieces. Such was this wonderful experience!

LEGO has put a great degree of emphasis in getting the details on the engineering elements in sync with the original Saturn design. I would like to think that the LEGO 21309 NASA Apollo Saturn V is nothing less than a commemorative token celebrating the Apollo Missions and a must-have for any space enthusiast. There was so much nostalgia & pride in assembling this rocket, it’s only then that you recognize the Saturn V as a symbol of human engineering endeavour, apart from also being a reminder of the July 20, 1969 landing of the Apollo 11 on the Moon. No surprises though, but 2019 is also the 50th anniversary of the moon landing! So, in honouring the Saturn V’s contribution in Apollo missions through the moon landing, this LEGO set contains exactly 1969 pieces, which also makes it my biggest Lego assembly since the 578-brick Fire Plane that I build back in 2016. Take a look at the gorgeous images of the rocket I built, you’ll be amazed at how much LEGO has explored the details!

  • Close-up of the J-2 engine on the S-IVB stage.
  • The Lunar Module sitting atop the S-IVB in a typical Apollo-11 configuration.
  • The rugged LEGO interior of the S-1C stage. I'd the hardest time building this.
  • The Escape Tower on the (supposedly) Apollo Spacecraft (grey portion). Alaos called the "mothership". The LM Adapter is also visible.
  • The S-II stage of the Saturn V with 5 J-2 engines. It carried a combination of liquid hydrogen & liquid oxygen fuels.
  • Close-up of the S-IVB stage with the J-2 engine.
  • The gorgeous LEGO Saturn-V launch vehicle, standing at 3-feet tall! It contains 1969 pieces.
  • The 5 F-1 rocket engines on the S-1C stage.
  • The LEGO Saturn V box.
  • This isn't the engine of a rocket, primarily, just a detailed LEGO construction.
  • From L to R - Escape System, S-IVB stage, S-II stage, and S-1C stage. (front row, L to R) the Command Module & the Lunar Module.
  • Another view of the S-1C stage.
  • S-1C stage with the F-1 engines, and an actual human scale model of an astronaut figure.
  • The Lunar Module
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GSLV-III And India’s Human Spaceflight Dream

November 14, 2018 Happenings
GSLV Mk.III launching from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

Always the one to glorify any news relating to advances made in science & space technology, I couldn’t hide my emotions when I read about the successful mission of one of India’s heaviest launch vehicle systems the GSLV-III (aka GSLV Mark III) which placed a communication satellite payload to its GEO orbit, the 3,423 kg (7,546 lb) GSAT 29. However, when this 13-storey tall heavy rocket took-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center it not only connected the country’s remotest, most crucial parts with a high-speed network it also marked a step closer in achieving the goal of putting ‘Vyomanauts’ into space.

One of the most ambitious ISRO projects is the proposed manned mission into space, that will lift-off on a homegrown launch vehicle; the GSLV-III, with an all-Indian crew. The project has been named Gaganyaan or ‘sky craft’ and a planned date for the launch is 2022. If you want to truly understand the significance of today’s launch you will have to go back to the 90s when India was prevented from gaining access to the cryogenic engine technology by the US from Russia’s Glavkosmos which cited the dual purpose use of the technology and prohibited its transfer under the provisions of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). That pushed back the development of the GSLV rockets by decades. 

The GSLV-III handles payloads of up to 4-5 tons into the GEO orbit with the cryogenic upper stage providing the extra thrust required by the rocket to carry heavier payloads into deeper space. That (second) stage is designated as ‘C-25’ and contains the CE-20 cryogenic rocket engine which was developed indigenously. It’s one of the most powerful cryogenic upper stages in the world today.

India has plans to orbit an Indian crew into space in 2022 and that mission will be accomplished by GSLV-III (nicknamed ‘Bahubali’). Meanwhile, this mighty launch vehicle is also slated to carry another most anticipated lunar probe with a rover landing, the Chandrayaan 2 in January 2019. In all of this, today’s successful flight of the GSLV-III rocket indeed brings India closer to its human spaceflight dream. Vyomanauts! Let’s go!!

Some GSLV-III stats in a nutshell:

  • Height – 43.4 m
  • Mass – 640,000 kg
  • Payload to LEO – 8,000 kg
  • Payload to GTO – 4,000 kg
  • Stages – 3
  • Boosters – 2x S200

Photo – Indian Space Research Organization

SpaceX Launches A Dream Into Space

February 6, 2018 Happenings

It was business, as usual, today for SpaceX with their ambitious Falcon Heavy vehicle as I watched the rocket soar into the blue skies amidst cheers taking with it the aspirations of a billion humans to become interplanetary travellers. There was nothing about this first launch which would suggest SpaceX was testing this beastly projectile whose thrust would be equivalent to 18 Boeing 747 aircrafts or its technology of Falcon rockets with 27 core engines firing at full force during launch – the most by any working rocket, or even getting all the 3 stages back to the Earth safely. Everything went smoothly, just like the previous Falcon missions bringing SpaceX closer to realizing its potential of sending humans to Mars and beyond. For me though, that wasn’t the highlight of the launch today. What made it momentous was its rather uncommon payload of the ‘Starman’ in a SpaceX-designed space suit behind the wheels of Elon Musk’s cherry red Tesla Roadster which is right now orbiting the Earth on its way to Mars and will orbit the Sun indefinitely. On the Falcon Heavy, only time would tell how this behemoth will disrupt the commercial space industry.