Aerojet Rocketdyne history

The company was incorporated March 19, 1942, as Aerojet Engineering Corp., and received its first production contract three months later.

Radio broadcasting began with the purchase of several radio networks starting in 1943.

In the spring of 1945, a number of scientists from Germany's V-2 rocket program surrendered to United States forces.

The Aerobee class (eventually designated the X-8 series by the Air Force), launched in 1947, was used for decades.

General Tire and Rubber Company, forerunner to GenCorp, was an early investor, acquiring the company in 1948.

Aerojet employed nearly 2,800 people in 1952, when sales were $21 million.

With the merger of Crosley Motors in 1953, the subsidiary was officially renamed Aerojet-General Corporation.

Aerojet was called the "General Motors of United States Rocketry" by Time magazine in 1958; five years later, the company employed 34,000 people working on missiles such as the Polaris, Minuteman, Trident, and Titan.

In May 1959, Aerojet bought a Downey, California defense business from the Rheem Corporation.

Beichel is credited with leading the team that designed the Redstone rocket that Alan Shepard, Jr., rode into space in 1961.

Renamed Aerojet Redmond after the acquisition, this company had been founded in 1968 as Rocket Research.

1969: Aerojet rocket motors propel astronauts to the moon.

A food flavorings unit, H.A. Johnson Co., was sold to Sands, Taylor & Wood of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in February 1975.

Aerojet began producing depleted uranium rounds after the 1976 acquisition of a factory in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

Sales were $349.4 million in 1980, with earnings of $26.6 million.

Aerojet's 13,500-acre complex near Rancho Cordova, California, was designated a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1983, and the company was forced to spend millions treating the groundwater underneath it.

In 1984, General Tire created a parent holding company, GenCorp, for its various businesses.

Eventually, the company exited the tire business entirely by divesting General Tire in 1987.

Aerojet reached sales of $1 billion in 1988, when it had 8,000 employees.

In 1989, NASA chose Aerojet and Lockheed Corporation to produce solid fuel rocket motors for the Space Shuttle program, replacing Morton Thiokol Inc., which had been dropped after the Challenger disaster.

Aerojet announced a reorganization in May 1990.

In December 1994, GenCorp announced it would sell the rest of Aerojet as well.

The company, based in Fairlawn, Ohio, said that for the model years beginning in 1997, G.M. planned to convert its composite components in the mini-van line that includes the Lumina to steel from reinforced plastic.

COMPANY NEWSCOMPANY NEWS; GENCORP TO BUY A COMMERCIAL WALL COVERING BUSINESSGencorp acquires commercial wall covering business of Walker Greenbank PLC of Britain; terms undisclosed (S)By Dow JonesApril 8, 1998

By 1999 sales were $45 million a year.

In 2001, Northrop Grumman Corporation bought Aerojet's Electronic and Information Systems (EIS) business for $315 million.

A 2,600-acre section of the Rancho Cordova property was removed from Superfund status in 2002 and was slated to be commercially developed.

Aerojet's profits slipped 2.3 percent to $43 million in 2003 as revenues rose 18 percent to $321 million.

GenCorp's two remaining businesses, as of 2008, are Aerojet and real estate.

In 2010, GenCorp formed Easton Development Co., LLC to concentrate on the sustainable development of approximately 6,000 acres of excess undeveloped GenCorp land, identified as prime real estate and located 15 miles east of Sacramento, California.

In July 2012, GenCorp agreed to buy rocket engine producer Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne from United Technologies Corporation for $550 million.

On December 20, 2020, it was announced that Lockheed Martin would acquire the company for $4.4 billion.