AS-103
third boilerplate test of the Apollo spacecraft and launch of Pegasus 1
AS-103 was the third orbital flight test of a boilerplate Apollo spacecraft, and the first flight of a Pegasus micrometeoroid detection satellite. Also known as SA-9, it was the third operational launch of a two-stage Saturn I launch vehicle.
Objectives
Of 12 flight objectives assigned, two were concerned with the operation of the Pegasus satellite, eight with launch vehicle systems performance, one with jettisoning the launch escape system, and one with separation of the boilerplate spacecraft. The satellite objectives were (1) demonstration of the functional operations of the mechanical, structural, and electronic systems and (2) evaluation of meteoroid data sampling in near-Earth orbit. Since the launch trajectory was designed to insert the Pegasus satellite into the proper orbit, it differed substantially from the trajectory used in missions AS-101 and AS-102.
Launch
The launch vehicle consisted of an S-I first stage, an S-IV second stage, and an instrument unit. The spacecraft consisted of a boilerplate command and service module, a launch escape system, and a service module/launch vehicle adapter (BP-16). The Pegasus 1 satellite was enclosed within the service module, attached to the S-IV stage. The orbital configuration consisted of the satellite mounted on the adapter, which remained attached to the instrument unit and the expended S-IV stage.
The vehicle was launched from Cape Kennedy Launch Complex 37B at 9:37:03 a.m.
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This entry incorporates text from “AS-103” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.