The giant Saturn V rocket lifting off from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, 4 April 1968

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based paper, printed 1968, (NASA S-68-27728), with "Tucker" collection credit stamp and "A KODAK PAPER" watermark on verso (NASA North American Rockwell), 20,3 x 25,4 cm

Apollo 6 was the final unmanned Apollo test mission of the Saturn V rocket that would take astronauts to the Moon.

The Apollo 6 (Spacecraft 020/Saturn 502) unmanned space mission was launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida. The liftoff of the huge Apollo/Saturn V space vehicle occurred at 7:00:01.5 a.m. (EST), April 4, 1968.

Three major problems occurred during the mission. Two minutes and five seconds after launch, the Saturn V structure underwent a severe pogo oscillation, without damage to the spacecraft structure. Due to a manufacturing flaw and unrelated to the pogo oscillations, structural panels were lost from the lunar module adapter. Finally, after the completion of first stage firing and part way through the second stage burn, two of the five second stage J-2 engines shut down prematurely. The planned 175 km circular Earth orbit was not achieved, instead, after completion of the third stage burn, the spacecraft was in a 172.1 x 223.1 km, 89.8 min orbit. After two orbits, the third stage failed to reignite as planned, so the Service Module propulsion system was used to boost the spacecraft to an apogee of 22,225.4 km, from which the planned lunar reentry simulation took place at 36,025 km/hr, slightly less than the planned velocity of 40,000 km/hr. (NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive (NSSDCA)).