Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas.

Joining von Kármán, who was at the time director of Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, were a number of Caltech professors and students, including rocket scientist and astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky and explosives expert Jack Parsons, all of whom were interested in the topic of spaceflight.

In 1942 von Kármán, Parsons, Frank Malina, Ed Forman, Martin Summerfield and Andrew G. Haley founded the Aerojet Engineering Corporation.

[2] Some aspects of the early operation of the company were described by von Kármán in his autobiography:[3] On March 19, 1942, Haley obtained our incorporation papers and the Aerojet Engineering Corporation was launched.

The difficulty of starting out in an industry with no history explains how the founders lost control: Unhappily for us, no bank would lend us money; bankers hadn't yet come to think of rocketry as a stable business.

In the immediate post-war era, Aerojet downsized dramatically, but their JATO (jet-assisted take-off) units continued to sell for commercial aircraft operating in hot-and-high conditions.

Aerojet designed and built a total of 1,182 engines for all four incarnations of the Titan rockets, which were used for civilian projects ranging from Gemini's crewed flights to solar system explorations including Viking, Voyager, and Cassini.

[4] The then recently formed US Air Force selected Aerojet as their primary supplier on a number of ICBM projects, including the Titan and Minuteman missiles.

One of Azusa's major projects was the development of the infra-red detectors for the Defense Support Program satellites, used to detect ICBM launches from space.

During this period, Aerojet built a large concrete pad in San Ramon, California, for the purpose of rocket engine testing for the space program.

[5][better source needed] Similar work continued in the 1970s, delivering the second-stage motor for the MX missile, the Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) for the Space Shuttle, and the first U.S.-designed cluster bombs.

The financial losses incurred just from the completion of the original two ships led them to sell the shipyard shortly after the new construction began, and sue the Federal government for allegedly misleading them on the cost overruns inherited from Gibbs.

Aerojet qualified a 4.5-kW Hall effect thruster electric propulsion system based on technology licensed from the Busek Corporation.

NASA chose Aerojet to provide the primary design and development of Orion (spacecraft) propulsion systems for the Constellation program.

In November 2010, Aerojet was selected by NASA for consideration for potential contract awards for heavy lift launch vehicle system concepts and propulsion technologies.

In 1963, the U.S. Air Force provided Aerojet General with $3 million in funding to start construction of a manufacturing and testing site several miles southwest of Homestead, Florida.

Efforts are being made to remediate the long term environmental damage caused by the canal, which include the redirection of fresh water from Taylor Slough and thus Florida Bay to Barnes Sound.

[19] Problems arose during the third test when, near burnout, the rocket nozzle was ejected, causing propellant made of hydrochloric acids to be spread across wetlands in the Everglades and a few crop fields and homes in Homestead.

[citation needed] By 1969, NASA had decided to go with liquid-fueled engines for the Saturn V rockets, causing the workers of the Everglades plant to be laid off and the abandonment of the facility.

Aerojet's manufacture, testing and disposal methods led to toxic contamination of both the land and groundwater in the Rancho Cordova area, leading to the designation of a Superfund site.

Solvents such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and chloroform and rocket fuel by-products such as N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) and perchlorate were discovered in drinking water wells near Aerojet in 1979.

Under state and federal enforcement orders, Aerojet installed several systems on the borders of its property to pump out and treat contaminated groundwater.

In 1980, it was announced that there was TCE contamination in the groundwater at Aerojet's facility in Azusa in a hearing chaired by State Senator Esteben Torres.

[24] In 1997, it was also discovered that there was also NDMA and Ammonium Perchlorate contamination in this plume and that Aerojet was once again labeled a Potentially Responsible Party (PRP) in this action.

Aerojet's disposal of toxic material occurred 20 years prior to the establishment of a provisional perchlorate RfD limit of 0.0001 mg/kg/day in 1992 (to have been achieved by all companies by 1995).

The Aerojet General X-8 was an unguided, spin-stabilized sounding rocket designed to launch a 150 lb (68 kg) payload to 200,000 feet (61.0 km).