Description
Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. is a holding company of Aerojet Rocketdyne, an American manufacturer of rocket, hypersonic, and electric propulsive systems for space, defense, civil and commercial applications. Aerojet traces its origins to the General Tire and Rubber Company established in 1915, while Rocketdyne was created as a division of North American Aviation in 1955.
In addition to Aerojet Rocketdyne, the holding company also owns the real estate firm Easton Development Company, LLC through which it owns over 12,000 acres of land near Sacramento, California originally utilized for Aerojet's operations in testing and manufacturing dating back to the 1950s, however due to the evolution of the firm and propulsion technology, about half of this land is now being redeveloped for residential and commercial use by the company.
History
Background: Aerojet
Several decades after it began manufacturing rubber products, General Tire & Rubber diversified into broadcasting and aeronautics.
In the 1940s, the Aerojet company began experimenting with various rocket designs. For a solid-fuel rocket, they needed binders, and turned to General Rubber for assistance. General became a partner in the company.
Radio broadcasting began with the purchase of several radio networks starting in 1943. In 1952, its purchase of WOR-TV expanded the broadcast business into television. In 1953, General Tire & Rubber bought the RKO Radio Pictures movie studio. All of its media and entertainment holdings were organized into the RKO General division.
Due to the studio and rocket businesses, General Tire & Rubber came to own a great deal of property in California. Its internal facilities management unit began commercializing its operations, landing General Tire & Rubber in the real estate business. This started when Aerojet-General Corporation acquired approximately 12,600 acres (51 km2) of land in Eastern Sacramento County. Aerojet converted these former gold fields into one of the premier rocket manufacturing and testing facilities in the Western world. However, most of this land was used to provide safe buffer zones for Aerojet's testing and manufacturing operations. Later, as the need for these facilities and safety zones decreased, the property became available for other uses. Located 15 miles (24 km) northeast of Sacramento along US Highway 50, the properties were valuable, being in a key growth corridor in the region. Approximately 6,000 acres (24 km2) of the Aerojet lands are now being planned as a community called Easton. Easton Development Company LLC was formed to assist in the process.
Background: Rocketdyne
In 1955, North American Aviation spun off Rocketdyne, a developer of rocket motors that built upon research conducted into the German V-2 Rocket after World War II. Rocketdyne would become a major supplier for NASA, producing the Rocketdyne F-1 engine for the Saturn V rocket of the Apollo Space Program as well as the RS-25 engine of the Space Shuttle program and its successor the Space Launch System (SLS) program. Together, Aerojet Rocketdyne has gone on to contribute to every successful NASA Mars mission, including powering the launch, entry, descent, and landing phases of the Perseverance rover mission.
Name change
In 1984, General Tire created a parent holding company, GenCorp, for its various businesses. The main subsidiaries were: General Tire and Rubber; RKO General, the broadcast arm of the conglomerate; DiversiTech General, a manufacturer of tennis balls and polymer products, including automotive soundproofing and home wallpapers; and Aerojet General, a defense (missile) contractor.
Through its RKO General subsidiary, the company also held stakes in: Frontier Airlines; RKO bottlers, which operated Pepsi-Cola distributorships; and several resorts and hotels, including the Westward Look resort in Tucson, Arizona.
Disconglomeration
Faced with a hostile takeover attempt, among other difficulties, GenCorp shed some of its long-held units in the late 1980s.
RKO General ran into difficulties with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) during license renewal proceedings in the late 1980s. The FCC was reluctant to renew the broadcast licenses, due to widespread lying to advertisers and regulators. As a result of the protracted proceedings, GenCorp sold RKO General's broadcast properties beginning in 1987.
GenCorp also sold its former flagship, General Tire, to German tire maker Continental AG in order to concentrate on Aerojet.
In 1999, GenCorp spun off its Decorative & Building Products and Performance Chemicals businesses. GenCorp formed OMNOVA Solutions, Inc. into a separate, publicly traded company, and transferred those businesses into it.
GenCorp's two remaining businesses, as of 2008, are Aerojet and real estate.
Aeronautics expansion
In July 2012, GenCorp agreed to buy rocket engine producer Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne from United Technologies Corporation for $550 million. The FTC approved the deal on June 10, 2013, and it closed on June 17.
Abandoned acquisition by Lockheed Martin
On December 20, 2020, it was announced that Lockheed Martin would acquire the company for $4.4 billion. The acquisition was expected to close in first quarter of 2022,[20] however this received opposition from Raytheon Technologies, later the FTC sued to block this deal on a 4-0 vote in January 2022 on grounds that this would eliminate the largest independent maker of rocket motors and Lockheed subsequently abandoned the deal in February 2022.
Acquisition by L3Harris
In December 2022, L3Harris Technologies agreed to buy the company for $4.7 billion in cash.
