The first stage engines are burned at liftoff and last for about 2.5 minutes taking the vehicle and payload to an altitude of 38 miles.
ANALYSIS: Saturn V Also Suffered Engine Launch Anomalies. Then on its third launch the huge Saturn V was manned. These powerful engines are required to lift the heavy rocket fast enough to escape Earth's gravity.
The Saturn V rockets used for the Apollo missions had three stages.
The Saturn V rocket’s first stage carries 203,400 gallons (770,000 liters) of kerosene fuel and 318,000 gallons (1.2 million liters) of liquid oxygen needed for combustion. The first Saturn V was launched in an unmanned Earth orbital flight on November 9, 1967, with all three stages performing perfectly. This isn't the most thrilling read out there, but for anyone seriously interested in how the Saturn series came to be, it rewards careful reading. Beginning with Apollo 13, the afterlives of the spent S-IVB stages became a lot more interesting. Each stage would burn its engines until it was out of fuel and would then separate from the rocket.
The Saturn V "Haynes manual" is nice, but it lacks the scope of "Stages to Saturn." The first stage of the Saturn V Rocket includes the five F-1 engines producing nearly 7.7 million pounds of thrust. The Saturn V that launched the Skylab space station only had two stages. Only one additional research and development flight test was made. The engines on the next stage would fire, and the rocket would continue into space.