Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne ( PWR) is a company engaged in the development and production of rocket engines in the USA. Headquartered in Canoga Park near Los Angeles in California.

The company has long been one North American Aviation (NAA ). The NAA merged with Rockwell International, but were sold back to Boeing in December 1996. In February 2005, Boeing reached an agreement to sell at Rocketdyne Pratt & Whitney. This transaction was completed on 2 August 2005.

History

Rocketdyne was founded by NAA in the immediate postwar period to examine and adjust their driving to the standards of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE ) and the American design conditions the German V-2 rocket. They used the same principle of separate combustion chambers / injectors of the V2 engine to build a much larger rocket engine for the Navaho missile project. This work had been considered in their forties as unimportant and was also very poorly funded, but the beginning of the Korean War changed the priorities. However, the Navajo came new difficulties in getting and was eventually discontinued in the late fifties, when the development of the Redstone missile program (essentially a much larger V-2) began., However, was the rocket engine of Rocketdyne, known as A-5 -110 or NAA75 detectable much more reliable than the hitherto developed Redstone rocket engine. Then, the rocket has been converted to the A -5, although the resulting rocket thereof had a substantially shorter range. When the missile production was started, divided the NAA Rocketdyne from 1955 as a separate subsidiary.

Rocketdynes next big development was their first complete redesign, the S- 3D, which was developed in parallel to the V -2 type -A series. S -3 was used with the Jupiter missiles substantially a development of the Redstone and was later selected for much greater gate - missile. For even more construction, which was LR89/LR105 used in the Atlas rocket. Both Thor and Atlas, had a brief career in the military, but were used for the satellite launch during the fifties and sixties in different variants. One variant, the "Thor Delta " was the basis for the current Delta rocket series, although since the late sixties, the delta with the Thor had almost nothing in common. Although the original S-3 engine was used in some Delta variants used but most of the enhanced RS -27 design, which was originally developed as a single engine to replace the triple engine of the Atlas.

Rocketdyne was the main supplier for the development efforts of NASA, provides the major engines for the Saturn rocket (and potentially the Nova rocket ). Rocketdynes H-1 engine was used in the main stage of the Saturn I, which consists of a composite of eight Jupiter substantially. F- 1 was in the first stage of the Saturn V, while the J- II was used in the second and third stages. Around 1965 Rocketdyne built the vast majority of U.S. rocket engines and the workforce grew to 65,000. This growth seemed likely to go on, as the contract for the main engine of the space shuttle was achieved even in the seventies. But the rapid decline of both the military and civilian jobs led to a corresponding thereto streamlining of the company. North American, now largely an aerospace supplier and almost exclusively bound to the Space Shuttle, merged in 1966 with the earlier North American Rockwell Rockwell, from the later Rockwell International was, with Rocketdyne as a main division.

When the streamlining continued in the eighties and nineties, Rockwell lost some parts of the former NAA empire. The first was 1980, the general aviation segment and 1983 was followed by the Saber Liner business jet division. The rest of the NAA was sold in 1996 along with Rocketdyne Boeing. Rocketdyne was a part of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems was up there on 2 August 2005 sold to Pratt & Whitney.

Developments

Rocket engines

Some developed by Rocketdyne rocket engines:

• H-1 (kerosene / liquid oxygen (LOX ) ) used by the Saturn I, IB, Jupiter, and some Delta rockets
• F-1 (kerosene / LOX) used by the Saturn V.
• J-2 (liquid hydrogen ( LH2) / LOX) used by the Saturn V and Saturn IB.
• SSME ( LH2/LOX ) used as the main engine of the space shuttle
• RS -68 ( LH2/LOX ) used in the first stage of delta IV
• RS- 27A (kerosene / LOX) used in the Delta Delta II / III and Atlas

Many Rocketdyne engines were tested at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory ( SSFL ) of Boeing. This is located in the Santa Susana Mountain range and the Simi Hills (northwest of Los Angeles in California and Chatsworth ). Rocketdyne, which, Inc. now operates as Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne as a 100 percent subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation, headquartered in Canoga Park, Calif., with offices in West Palm Beach, Florida, Huntsville ( Alabama), Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

Rocketdyne many operational projects and programs at Edwards Air Force Base in the Antelope Valley in the California desert near Rosamond, together with the aerospace company Lockheed Martin.