This week in 1965, NASA awarded the Instrument Unit contract, NAS8-1400, to International Business Machines. This was the first major incentive contract to be negotiated in the Saturn IB Program. Designed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and built by IBM, the Instrument Unit served as the “nerve center” for the Saturn V, providing guidance and control, command and sequence of vehicle functions, telemetry and environmental control. Here, the Instrument Unit is being manufactured in the east high bay at IBM in Huntsville. The Saturn V was designed at Marshall. Now through December 2022, NASA will mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Program that landed a dozen astronauts on the Moon between July 1969 and December 1972, and the first U.S. crewed mission – Apollo 8 – that circumnavigated the Moon in December 1968. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage. (NASA)