Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne completed more than 1,600 successful booster missions with its rocket engines — the highest number of launches ever achieved by a U.S. company. With a track record stretching back to the Eisenhower administration, PWR carried the first U.S. astronauts into space and to the moon, deployed satellites on planetary orbits, and lifted deep-space telescopes that found galaxies near the dawn of time. In August, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne hit the 1,600 mark with the successful launch of the GeoEye-1 commercial satellite. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is a United Technologies Corp. company.
“I am proud to be part of a team that has accomplished so much and overcome so many technical challenges to achieve such an impressive milestone,” said Jim Maser, president, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. “I look forward to our bright future as we expand our business in new and exciting areas.”
After launching the first American Redstone Rocket in 1953, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne’s family of engines went on to boost satellites that predict hurricanes; provide military and intelligence applications; map, measure and monitor the environment; and supply communications, global positioning and navigational systems throughout the world. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne’s Space Shuttle Main Engines continue to launch astronauts and equipment bound for the International Space Station with 100 percent mission success. And with the J-2X, RS-68 and Common Extensible Cryogenic Engine propulsion systems, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne stands poised to carry astronauts back to the moon and beyond. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is also expanding into hypersonics, developing a propulsion system for a hydrocarbon scramjet, a military plane that will travel at supersonic speeds greater than Mach 5, as well as propulsion systems that will help defend the nation against ballistic missile attacks.
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Inc., a part of Pratt & Whitney, is a preferred provider of high-value propulsion, power, energy and innovative system solutions used in a wide variety of government and commercial applications, including the main engines for the space shuttle, Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, missile defense systems and advanced hypersonic engines.
Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and building industries.
