Rocketdyne - History

History

Rocketdyne was formed by North American Aviation after World War II to study the German V-2 missile and adapt its engine to SAE measurements and US construction details. Rocketdyne also used the same general concept of separate burner/injectors from the V-2 engine design to build a much larger engine for the Navaho missile project. This work was considered unimportant in the 1940s and funded at a very low level, but the start of the Korean War in 1950 changed priorities. Navaho ran into continual difficulties and was canceled in 1957s when Redstone missile design (essentially an improved V-2) had caught up in development. However the Rocketdyne engine, known as the A-5 or NAA75-110, proved to be considerably more reliable than the one developed for Redstone, so the missile was redesigned with the A-5 even though the resulting missile had much shorter range. As the missile entered production, NAA spun off Rocketdyne in 1955 as a separate division.

In 1967, NAA and Rocketdyne merged with the Rockwell Corporation to form North American Rockwell, later part of Rockwell International.