AS-102 (also referred to as SA-7) was the seventh flight of the Saturn I launch vehicle, transporting the boilerplate Apollo spacecraft BP-15 into low Earth orbit. This test occurred on September 18, 1964, and lasted for five orbits (approximately seven and a half hours). The spacecraft and its upper stage ultimately completed 59 orbits before reentering the atmosphere and crashing into the Indian Ocean on September 22, 1964.
AS-102 marked the first instance of a Saturn rocket carrying a programmable guidance computer. Unlike previous launches that relied on a pre-programmed "black box," this mission allowed for in-flight reprogramming of the computer, enabling the correction of any anomalous behavior that might occur.
