WASHINGTON -- Last week's announcement that Pratt & Whitney would acquire Aerojet-General's space-propulsion unit to form a new U.S. rocket-engine company wasn't much of a surprise to
industry observers, but it may signal a key change in the economic reality of an industry dominated by few players.
The U.S. industrial base of rocket-engine builders is occupied today not by dynamic new U.S. engine designs to power future generations of advanced boosters and spaceships, but by Russian engines imported into American
launchers.
| Anatomy of a rocket merger |
| Aerojet-General, part of GenCorp., and Pratt & Whitney, part of UnitedTechnologies Corp., merged their rocket-engine programs to form a new, single space-propulsion company. Pratt & Whitney would own a majority interest in the new rocket firm. What to learn more? Click here. |
For reasons that include international geopolitics, good engineering and lower costs, these imports may be helping to hasten the day when there is virtually no American rocket engine with a purely domestic pedigree.
"If it were not for the Russian rocket-engine technology infusion into the U.S. rocket business by the U.S. government, the industry would be in far worse shape than it is today," says Charles P. Vick, a space-
launch analyst at the Federation of American Scientists.
Both Aerojet and Pratt & Whitney have chosen Russian rocket engines for their latest space booster projects instead of attempting to develop a purely domestic U.S. design. Aerojet began importing Russian-made NK 33 engines into the U.S. in 1997. The rockets had been part of the abandoned Russian lunar-landing project and had languished in warehouses in Russia for decades.
Pratt & Whitney is importing Russia's RD 180 engines to power the new U.S. commercial Atlas 3 and 5 launchers. The engine had been used on Russia's heavy-lift Energia booster. The rocket was abandoned after just two flights, too costly for the Russian space effort to continue.
Vick suggests that the commercial space industry can't support as many rocketeers as are in business today. Vick points to his own efforts at promoting the advantage of using Russian designs to bolster American business. He also hails the leadership of Jerry Thomson of
NASA and later Aerojet, and Don Witt of Pratt & Whitney for spearheading the movement towards importing Russian designs into U.S. industry.
"This has given a new class of robust engines to the U.S. missile and space market that was not available," Vick says. The attempts at lowering the cost of American space launch would have been unsuccessful without this technology, he suggests.
The bottom line for the U.S. rocket and launcher industry?
"These joint ventures were developed to acquire the 'crown jewels' of the Russian rocket industry, their technology, while providing gainful employment to the Russian rocket engineers," Vick said.
Such projects have kept these engineers and technicians from selling their wares to developing nations. "This has been for the betterment of all concerned," he added.
Aerojet's pedigree
Aerojet-General was part of GenCorp. and featured a
rocketeering pedigree that went back to the heart of space history. Their engines powered the Apollo spacecraft into and out of lunar orbit and carried teams of U.S. astronauts to the moon's dusty surface. Their liquid engines never failed once on an Apollo voyage, racking up hours in space of reliable performance.
But it is in today's space program that Aerojet played a big role in the American and foreign efforts at developing space, mixing designs that use both solid and liquid fuel. These designs are used in both military missile and civilian rocket projects.
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They include missile-maneuvering thrusters, thrusters for the Mars Microprobes, motors on the Air Force's Minuteman 2 and 3 missiles, satellite thrusters and rockets to control the space shuttle in orbit and the upcoming X 33 while in flight. Even the commercial Delta 2 and big military Titan 4 uses Aerojet engines to power their rocket stages.
And someday, should the space station's lifeboat need to carry injured astronauts to an emergency rescue, an Aerojet motor will drop them down from orbit.
Aerojet's rocket expertise is also seen abroad. Japan will use its engines to power their Hope X winged spaceplane prototype while in orbit.
Whether they develop civil, military, commercial or foreign launchers, missiles or spaceships, Aerojet designs are everywhere.
Pratt & Whitney’s upper-stage power
In addition to its Russian import project, Pratt & Whitney makes veteran upper-stage engines as well. Since the days of the first Saturn boosters in the early 1960's, versions of Pratt & Whitney's RL 10 engine has powered probes to the moon and planets -- and toward commercial profits.
The engine is only U.S. upper-stage engine using supercold hydrogen for fuel. For decades it was the only American-made liquid-fuel rocket engine capable of sending satellites and cargo to escape Earth orbit to the planets or sending profitable commercial satellites to geostationary heights.
Last May, an imported Russian RD 180 blasted the new Lockheed Martin Atlas 3 into space. Once aloft, Pratt's RL 10 took over to complete the mission. And in a few years, the RD 180s imported into the U.S. from Russia will power the new Atlas 5. In the new combined space-propulsion company, Russian-made engines will be the main products for boosters.
Instead of a field of independent rocketeers, as was the case in the 1960s and 1970s, companies in the industry today are each part of a specific launch-vehicle program.
The other remaining liquid-fuel rocketmaker in the U.S., is Rocketdyne, now part of the
Boeing Company. Rocketdyne's newest liquid-fuel engine, an all-American design, will compete against Pratt & Whitney's Russian import, as well as the Lockheed Martin Atlas that the latter powers.
While Boeing and Lockheed Martin may be able to offer complete launch services, U.S. rocket-engine companies will most likely be affiliated with one of the two aerospace giants just to survive.
In the long run, that might be a smaller industrial base for U.S. workers.
But given the threat posed by Russian rockets and engines in the space programs of developing nations, possibly a safer world as well.
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