TRW Inc., was an American corporation involved in a variety of businesses, mainly aerospace, electronics, automotive, and credit reporting. It was a pioneer in multiple fields including electronic components, integrated circuits, computers, software and systems engineering. TRW built many spacecraft, including Pioneer 1, Pioneer 10, and several space-based observatories. It was #57 on the 1986 Fortune 500 list, and had 122,258 employees. The company was called Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc., after the 1958 merger of the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation and Thompson Products. This was later shortened to TRW.

Pioneer 1 was an American space probe, the first under the auspices of NASA, which was launched by a Thor-Able rocket on 11 October 1958. It was intended to orbit the Moon and make scientific measurements, but due to a guidance error failed to achieve lunar orbit and was ultimately destroyed upon reentering Earth's atmosphere. The flight, which lasted 43 hours and reached an apogee of 113,800 km, was the second and most successful of the three Thor-Able space probes.