This week in 1966, AS-201, the first Saturn IB rocket, lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Designed and developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the AS-201 mission was an uncrewed suborbital flight to test the Saturn IB and the Apollo Command and Service modules. The objectives of the flight were to verify the structural integrity, launch loads, stage separation and operation of subsystems of the Saturn 1B, and evaluate the Apollo spacecraft subsystems, heatshield and mission support facilities. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage. (NASA)