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Launch Success
Liftoff Time (GMT)
14:53:13
Tuesday July 5, 1966
Watch Replay
Official Livestream
AS-203 (or SA-203) was an unmanned flight of the Saturn IB rocket on July 5, 1966. It carried no Apollo Command/Service Module spacecraft, as its purpose was to verify the design of the S-IVB rocket stage restart capability that would later be used in the Apollo program to boost astronauts from Earth orbit to a trajectory towards the Moon. It successfully achieved its objectives, but the stage was inadvertently destroyed after four orbits.
Low Earth Orbit
1 Payload
2nd
Mission
2nd
Mission of 1966
66th
Orbital launch attempt