Is Paul Allen Buying Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne?

Paul Allen

Here’s an interesting bit of news from Aviation Week:

United Technologies Corp. (UTC) is expected to complete the sale of its Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne rocket propulsion arm within the next two weeks as part of efforts to raise $3 billion to help finance its acquisition of Goodrich Corp….

The group believed to be most strongly linked to the acquisition is thought to involve Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, former Scaled Composites CEO Burt Rutan and former NASA administrator Mike Griffin. The three are behind Stratolaunch Systems, the company founded in late 2011 to develop a next-generation, mobile, airborne launch system based on a hybrid aircraft formed from two Boeing 747s (Aerospace DAILY, Dec. 14). Another board member of Stratolaunch is Dave King, vice president of Dynetics, the Huntsville, Ala.-based company that will be responsible for integration of the launch vehicle and carrier aircraft systems.

It’s a bit of a puzzle why they would be purchasing PWR if they’re using Space Falcon rockets for Stratolaunch. A possible explanation is that they have other projects in mind that would use the company’s expertise.

We’ll follow this story and let you know more as information becomes available.

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