The homotopy types of the posets of p-subgroups of a finite group

We study the homotopy properties of the posets of p-subgroups Sp(G) and Ap(G) of a finite group G, viewed as finite topological spaces. We answer a question raised by R.E. Stong in 1984 about the relationship between the contractibility of the finite space Ap(G) and that of Sp(G) negatively, and describe the contractibility of Ap(G) in terms of algebraic properties of the group G.