spacetoday.net: Recovered Saturn 5 rocket engine linked to Apollo 11

Recovered Saturn 5 rocket engine linked to Apollo 11

Posted: Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 7:05 AM ET (1105 GMT)
F-1 engine on ocean floor (Bezos Expeditions)

A recovered F-1 engine from a Saturn 5 rocket has been traced to the rocket that launched Apollo 11 44 years ago this month, the billionaire backing the recovery effort announced Friday. Jeff Bezos, whose Bezos Expeditions recovered the F-1 engine from the Atlantic Ocean seabed earlier this year, said restoration efforts were able to identify the serial number of the engine. That number, 2044, was engine #5 on the first stage of the Saturn 5 that launched Apollo 11 in July 1969. Efforts to restore the engine after decades of exposure to salt water continue; the engine will go the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, while a second engine recovered on the same expedition will go to Seattle's Museum of Flight.