by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
The latest audit of NASA’s troubled Space Launch System (SLS) finds the program is now even more behind schedule and over budget than previously thought, with the space agency failing to fully account to Congress for almost $6 billion in program costs.
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Artist’s conception of Vulcan rocket. (Credit; ULA)
CENTENNIAL, Colo., Feb. 29, 2016 (ULA PR) – United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Blue Origin LLC, a privately-funded aerospace company owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, entered into a public-private partnership with the U.S. Air Force to develop a new rocket propulsion system to power Vulcan — ULA’s next-generation launch system.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (GenCorp PR) – GenCorp Inc. (NYSE: GY) announced today that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all operations of the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne business (Rocketdyne) from United Technologies Corporation (NYSE:UTX). GenCorp will combine Rocketdyne with Aerojet-General Corporation (Aerojet), a wholly-owned subsidiary of GenCorp, and the combined businesses will operate as Aerojet Rocketdyne, Inc., headquartered in Sacramento, California.
As part of the Rocketdyne transaction, GenCorp will acquire UTC’s 50% interest in the RD Amross joint venture following receipt of Russian regulatory approvals.
A technician works on a reaction control system pod at the Aerojet facility in Redmond, Wash. The pod is one of eight that will be installed on the Orion crew module for Exploration Flight Test-1 and provide the critical maneuvers necessary for re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.(Credit: Aerojet)
By Linda Herridge
NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center
The last of eight reaction control system (RCS) pods for NASA’s Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) arrived this week at Kennedy Space Center’s Operations and Checkout Building (O&C) from the manufacturer, Aerojet, in Redmond, Wash.
“Arrival of the final reaction control system pod marks a significant milestone as we prepare NASA’s Orion crew module for its first flight test,” said Glenn Chinn, the deputy manager of the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Program in Kennedy’s Orion Production Operations Office.
“The pods will provide the critical maneuvers necessary for Orion’s re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.”
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Feb. 25, 2013 (Aerojet PR) — Aerojet, a GenCorp company, announced today that it successfully completed fabrication of the jettison motor and recently shipped the first two Crew Module Reaction Control System (CM RCS) pod assemblies for NASA’s Orion spacecraft’s Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1).
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected Aerojet of Sacramento, Calif., for a $23.3 million contract to develop engineering demonstrations and risk reduction concepts for future advanced boosters for the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS).
Aerojet is one of four companies contracted under a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) to improve the affordability, reliability and performance of an advanced booster for a future version of the SLS heavy-lift rocket.
AJ26 test firing. (Credit: Aerojet)
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Jan. 18, 2013 (Aerojet PR) — Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE:GY) company, announced today that its AJ26 engine successfully completed a hot fire test this evening at NASA’s Stennis Space Center.
Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE:ORB), Aerojet and NASA monitored the full-duration test in support of the Antares™ rocket program. This is the eleventh AJ26 engine to be tested at Stennis.
RD-180 test firing. (Credit: NASA)
Space News reports on the progress of a program that could lead to a replacement for Atlas V’s Russian-supplied first stage engine:
Negotiations on a proposal in which NASA and the U.S. Air Force would jointly fund an Aerojet-led propulsion project that could pave the way for a U.S. alternative to the Russian-built RD-180 rocket engine are bogged down over cost sharing issues, according to government and industry officials.
The impasse centers on how much funding the Air Force would provide for tests Aerojet has proposed as part of a program aimed at upgrading NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) crew and cargo rocket. Aerojet is one of four companies NASA selected in July to work on liquid- and solid-fueled booster concepts meant to improve SLS’s lift capacity and affordability.
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 16, 2012 (Aerojet PR) – Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE: GY) company, announced today that it will demonstrate a reduced toxicity monopropellant blend that offers improved performance and simplified handling processes over hydrazine, the traditional propellant choice for spacecraft.
Under contract to Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., Aerojet will perform the technology demonstration mission, known as the Green Propellant Infusion Mission, or GPIM, for NASA’s Space Technology Program.
United Technologies Corporation has created a new UTC Aerospace Systems business unit by acquiring aerospace parts maker Goodrich Corporation and combining it with UTC’s Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems, which has been making spacesuits, life-support equipment and other components for America’s space program for nearly 50 years.
To finance its Goodrich acquisition, UTC has agreed to sell Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to GenCorp (owner of Aerojet) for $550 million. The company will also sell its Hamilton Sundstrand Industrial unit to BC Partners and The Carlyle Group for $3.46 billion. The industrial unit manufactures highly engineered, mission-critical pumps and compressors for the global industrial, infrastructure and energy markets.
