Fifty years ago today — November 28, 1961 — North American Aviation won the prime contract to develop the Apollo Command & Service Module.
(Apollo-15 Command & Service Module, in lunar orbit. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)
This NASA history page has an interesting run-down of the competition and the source selection. The contract was critical to the overall Apollo effort:
The prime spacecraft contractor would develop and build the command module, service propulsion module, adapter (to fit the spacecraft to a space laboratory for earth-orbital flights and to the lunar landing propulsion section for lunar missions), and ground support equipment.
(Diagram of the Command Module interior. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)
While 14 companies received the request for proposal, in the final source selection North American Aviation competed against only General Dynamics Astronautics, General Electric, the Martin Company, and McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. Each company submitted a detailed technical and program management package in October 1961, which “were scrutinized and evaluated by more than a hundred specialists.”
The Martin Company actually had the highest aggregate rating from the source evaluation board, but North American Aviation had scored highest in technical qualifications and had “the longest record of close association with NACA-NASA and the most straightforward advance into space flight.” That apparently won the day for them, although Martin employees had been told — erroneously, as it turned out — on the 27th that they had won the contract.
With this contract, the Command & Service Module was the first part of the Apollo system to enter the “hardware phase.”
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