posted 02-23-2025 06:26 AM               

Space Cover 794: Apollo TRW Contractor Cover

I recently found this #10 size cover postmarked at Redondo Beach, CA, home of aerospace contractor TRW (now part of Northrop-Grumman), maker of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) descent engine. The date, April 17, 1970, was the day that Apollo 13 returned to Earth from its' epic ordeal of a mission. The lower left of the cachet shows an Apollo Lunar Module descending to the Moon with the words: "The last 10 miles are on us, Lunar descent engine by TRW." The upper left of the cachet shows a graphic of the Apollo 13 circumlunar trajectory that got it back to Earth, and the words: "And the last 250,000 miles were on us – Apollo XIII rescue by Lunar Module Descent Engine." And images of the crew's autopens appear to have been printed across the cachet.

The throttleable LM descent engine was quite a technological leap for its' time and it performed flawlessly for six lunar landings, and being re-purposed to save the Apollo 13 aborted mission. After Apollo wound down a modified version was used in the Delta II launch vehicle second stage. The LM descent engine at National Air and Space Museum is shown below.

So, I had never seen a TRW contractor cachet for an Apollo lunar mission before this one! And none are listed in Dawn Petersen's "Contractor Cover Handbook" (she did list some with a different design for Skylab).

The portion of the cachet in the upper left and the autopens were obviously applied just for Apollo 13. The portion of the cachet in the lower left about "The last 10 miles are on us" could have been used for any of the Apollo lunar landing missions. Is this Apollo 13 TRW cover a one-off? Has anyone seen TRW contractor covers for other Apollo missions?

posted 02-23-2025 08:01 AM               

I never seen a TRW cover for Apollo mission. Great find. Thanks for sharing.