Editing Apollo 5 (section)

== Background ==

In 1961, United States President [[John F. Kennedy]] [[We choose to go to the Moon|challenged the United States]] to land an astronaut on the [[Moon]] by the end of the decade, with a safe return to Earth.<ref name = "mission overview">{{cite web|title=Apollo 11 Mission Overview|url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo11.html|date=December 21, 2017|access-date=February 14, 2019|publisher=[[NASA]]}}</ref> After considerable debate, [[NASA]] (the US government's spaceflight agency) decided in late 1962 that lunar missions would use a [[lunar orbit rendezvous]] in which the complete [[Apollo spacecraft]] would be propelled towards lunar orbit by the [[Saturn V]] launch vehicle's third stage (called the [[S-IVB]]). Once in lunar orbit, those astronauts who would land on the Moon would enter what was then called the lunar excursion module (LEM) (later called the [[Apollo Lunar Module|lunar module]] (LM)). This craft would separate from the Apollo's command and service module (CSM) and land on the Moon. When the astronauts were ready to return, they would enter the LM, take off, and re-dock with the CSM. Once the crew reentered the CSM, they would discard the lunar module and return to Earth in the CSM.{{sfn|Orloff & Harland 2006|pp=25–26}} In 1962, NASA invited eleven companies to bid for the contract to construct the LM. On November&nbsp;7, 1962, NASA announced that it had awarded the contract to [[Grumman]] in [[Bethpage, New York]].{{sfn|Orloff & Harland 2006|p=26}}