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Aerojet

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Location: Sacramento, CA.

Aerojet was founded in 1942 in Pasadena, California by a small group of California Institute of Technology pioneering rocket scientists led by Dr. Theodore von Karman. These scientists were the inventors of the solid propellant rocket and the leaders in American liquid fuel rocket technology. The company's first products were Jet Assisted Take Off (JATO) rocket motors during World War II.

The expansion of military missile and space programs in the 1950s and 1960s resulted in boom times for Aerojet and construction by the company of the Western world's largest site for rocket engine development, testing, and production near Sacramento. In this heady period Aerojet expanded into space electronics, military ordnance, and even naval and computer systems. Only the propulsion, space electronics and ordnance divisions continued into the 1970's and 1980's.

Aerojet was undoubtedly the more innovative of the two leading American rocket engine companies. But as is usually the case, it lost most major space engine competitions to its less innovative but better-connected competitor, Rocketdyne.

In 2001 Aerojet sold its space electronics division, and thereafter acquired competitors in its core rocket propulsion area. These included General Dynamics' Space Systems business in Redmond, Washington, and the propulsion business of Atlantic Research Corporation in Gainesville, Virginia.

Aerojet developed the ultra-reliable storable propellant rocket engines used in the manned Apollo, Space Shuttle, and Orion spacecraft. These never experienced an in-flight failure. Its main engine systems were used in the Titan booster series, but production of these was completed in 2000.