Locations of NASA's prime contractors and test sites


Figure 1.   The NASA prime contractors

NASA's prime contractors in the Apollo program.

  • Chrysler: S-IB stage
  • Boeing: S-IC stage
  • North American Aviation (NAA): S-II stage and the Apollo Command Module and Service Module (CSM)
  • Douglas Aircraft Company: S-IVB stage
  • North American Aviation, Rocketdyne Division: H-1 engines for the S-IB stage, F-1 engines for the S-IC stage, J-2 engines for the S-II and S-IVB stage
  • Grumman: Lunar Module (LM) ascent and descent stage
NAA had many subcontractors to construct the Apollo CSM. One will be mentioned: Aerojet General Corp., the subcontractor who has built the Service Propulsion System (SPS)

Grumman also had many subcontractors to construct the Apollo LM. Two will be mentioned:

  • Space Technology Laboratories, the subcontractor who has built the LM descent engine
  • Bell Aerosystems, the subcontractor who has built the LM ascent engine
The locations of these contractors, the assembly sites and the test sites which have been used by them are shown on a map in figure 2.

There were thousands of other subcontractors involved in the realization of the Saturn V - Apollo. Some of them are mentioned in the grey colored callouts.


Figure 2.   Locations of NASA contractors and test sites

The contractors locations in California are crammed together on this map. In figure 3 these locations are shown on a map of the Los Angeles area.

The company names are the names used in 1960's and 1970's. Companies have been acquired or merged since then. For example, Grumman has been merged with Northrop in 1994 to form Northrop Grumman. The somewhat tumultuous history of Rocketdyne has been depicted in figure 4.


Figure 3.   Location of NASA contractors and test sites in the Los Angeles area

Credit to Google.


Figure 4.   The company history of Rocketdyne

This picture illustrates the somewhat tumultuous history of Rocketdyne, it has been moved around between companies several times.

Rocketdyne became prominent because of the manufacturing of rocket engines for the Saturn program.
The H-1 engines for the S-IB stage, the first stage of the Saturn IB launch vehicle.
The huge F-1 engines for the S-IC stage, the first stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle.
Both engines were running on RP-1 as fuel and liquid oxygen (LOX) as oxidizer.
The advanced J-2 engines for the S-II stage and the S-IVB stage were running on liquid hydrogen (LH) and liquid oxygen (LOX). The S-II stage was used as the second stage for the Saturn V and the S-IVB stage was used as the third stage for the Saturn V or the second stage for the Saturn IB.




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Copyright 2021 by Sander Panhuyzen
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