Rocketdyne

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F-1 rocket engine

Rocketdyne is the premier liquid rocket engine design and production company in the United States. The company was related to North American Aviation (NAA) for most of its history. NAA merged with the Rockwell Corporation, which was, decades later, bought by Boeing in December, 1996. In February, 2005, Boeing reached an agreement to sell Rocketdyne to Pratt & Whitney, and this transaction was completed on August 2, 2005.

Rocketdyne was formed by NAA in the immediate post-WW II era to study the German V-2 missile and adapt its engine to SAE measurements and US construction details. Rocketdyne also used the same general concept of separate burner/injectors from the V-2 engine design to build a much larger engine for the Navaho missile project. This work was considered unimportant in the 1940s and funded at a very low level, but the opening of the Korean War in 1950 changed priorities. Navaho ran into continual difficulties and was cancelled in the late 1950s when Redstone missile design (essentially a much larger V-2) had caught up in development. However the Rocketdyne engine, known as the A-5 or NAA75-110 proved to be considerably more reliable than the one developed for Redstone, so the missile was redesigned with the A-5 even though the resulting missile had much shorter range. As the missile entered production NAA spun off Rocketdyne in 1955 as a separate division.

Rocketdyne's next major development was its first all-new design, the S-3D, which had been developed in parallel to the V-2 derived A series. The S-3 was used on the Jupiter missile design, essentially a development of the Redstone, and was later selected for the considerably more capable Thor missile. An even larger design, the LR89/LR105, was used on the Atlas missile. The Thor had a short military career, but it was used as a satellite launcher through the 1950s and 60s in a number of different versions. One, Thor Delta, became the baseline for the current Delta series of space launchers, although since the late 1960s the Delta has had almost nothing in common with the Thor. Although the original S-3 engine was used on some Delta versions, most use its updated RS-27 design, originally developed as a single engine to replace the three-engine cluster on the Atlas.

The Atlas also had a short military career as a deterrent weapon, but it became an important orbital launcher for many decades, both for the Mercury manned spacecraft, and in the much-employed Atlas-Agena and Atlas-Centaur rockets. Advanced versions of the Atlas are still in manufacture and use.

Rocketdyne also became the major supplier for NASA's development efforts, supplying all of the major engines for the Saturn rocket rocket (and potentially, the huge Nova rocket) designs. Rocketdyne's H-1 engine was used by the Saturn I booster main stage, which consisted essentially of a cluster of eight Jupiters. The F-1 powered the Saturn V's, S-IC, first stage, while five J-II rockets powered its S-II second stage, and one J-II the S-IVB third stages. By 1965, Rocketdyne built the vast majority of US rocket engines, excepting those of the Titan rocket, and its payroll had grown to 65,000. This sort of growth appeared to be destined to continue in the 1970s when Rocketdyne won the contract for the Space Shuttle Main Engine. But the rapid downturn in other military and civilian contracts led to a similar downsizing of the company. North American, now largely a spacecraft manufacturer, and also tied almost entirely to the Space Shuttle, merged with the Rockwell Corporation in 1966 to form the North American Rockwell company, which in several years was renamed Rockwell International), with Rocketdyne as a major division.

During continued downsizing in the 1980's and 90's, Rockwell International shed several parts of the former North American Rockwell corporation. First to go was its General Aviation division in 1980, followed by the Sabreliner business jet division in 1983. The rest of the foremr NAA, along with Rocketdyne, was sold to Boeing in 1996. Rocketdyne served as part of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems until its sale to Pratt & Whitney on August 2, 2005. [1]

Some of the engines developed by Rocketdyne are:

H-1 (RP-1/LOX) Used by the Saturn I, Ib, Jupiter, Mercury-Redstone, and some Delta rockets.
F-1 (RP-1/LOX) Used by the Saturn V.
J-2 (LH2/LOX) Used by both the Saturn IB and Saturn V.
- J-2X (LH2/LOX) Upgraded J-2 engine to be used on the proposed Shuttle derived manned Ares I and unmanned Ares V heavy-lift launch vehicles.
SSME (LH2/LOX) The Space Shuttle Main Engine. Known by Rocketdyne as the RS-25 engine for engineering purposes.
RL-10 (LH2/LOX) Used by the Saturn I and on the Centaur upper stage on the Atlas V rocket, and will serve as the main propulsion engine for the Lunar Surface Access Module.
RS-68 (LH2/LOX) Used by the Delta IV first stage, and will serve as the main propulsion engine for the new Shuttle-based Ares V.
RS-27A (RP-1/LOX) Used by the Delta II/III and Atlas ICBM.

Many Rocketdyne engines were tested at Boeing's Santa Susana Field Laboratory, (SSFL), located in the Santa Susana Mountain Range and Simi Hills, in Ventura County, California, northwest of Los Angeles. Rocketdyne, now known as Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation, is headquartered in nearby Canoga Park, California and it has additional operations in West Palm Beach, Florida; Huntsville, Alabama; the Kennedy Space Center, Florida; and the Stennis Space Center, Mississippi.

Rocketdyne produced many projects and programs concurrently with Edwards Air Force Base located in the Antelope Valley, within the high desert area of California at Rosamond, as did the aerospace industry corporation, Lockheed, now known as Lockheed Martin.

On 26 July 1959 the Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE), a Rocketdyne-owned experimental sodium-cooled nuclear reactor at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory, suffered a meltdown resulting in a release of radiation. There have also been accusations made regarding improper disposal of nuclear waste. See Santa Susana Field Laboratory for more details. It should be noted that Rocketdyne does not currently deal with nuclear technology and does not currently use the Santa Susana facility for either rocket engine testing or nuclear experiments.