World record Saturn V model rocket launch planned

Photo: ROCKETS Magazine

After two years of hard work, one man hopes to make a world record when he launches a 36-foot-tall Saturn V model rocket this weekend from a farmer’s field on the Eastern Shore.

ROCKETS Magazine and The Maryland Delaware Rocketry Association (MDRA), marking the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969, are supporting the event.

Built by Steve Eves, the model rocket is 1:10 scale of the original Apollo Saturn V rocket.

This is a massive project by any standard. The rocket weighs over 1,600 pounds, stands over 36 feet tall and will be powered by a massive array of nine engines, eight 13,000ns N-Class motors and one 77,000ns P-Class motor. The estimated peak altitude of the flight is 4,000 feet.

As with the original moon program, nothing of this scale has ever been attempted and like the moon program it will take the best that rocketry has to offer. The Saturn V will be a world record attempt for the largest amateur rocket to ever be launched.

Plans are to launch the rocket at noon on Saturday, April 25, from a field used by MDRA. The rocket was recently hauled to the launch site outside of Price, Md., which is on the Delmarva Peninsula about 50 miles east of Baltimore.

Several astronauts — including Alan Beam, the fourth man to walk on the moon — signed the capsule on Eves rocket.