Home > International Directory of Company Histories > Aerojet-General Corp - Closing the Missile Gap

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Closing the Missile Gap

Aerojet employed nearly 2,800 people in 1952, when sales were $21 million. In 1953, the company established a weapons plant in Rancho Cordova, near Sacramento, California. Two years earlier, as the community of Pasadena grew around its original facility, the company had begun buying enough land for the new plant to isolate it from future development. The plant would be considered the free world's largest rocket engine facility.

Aerojet was called the "General Motors of U.S. 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. Revenues were $605 million in 1962.

In 1959, the company created two new divisions: Ordnance and Electronic Systems. The Electronic Systems Division created infrared technology allowing satellites to observe missile launches around the world—a vital component of U.S. defense during the Cold War. In May 1959, Aerojet bought a Downey, California defense business from the Rheem Corporation. This was combined with a small defense operation acquired three years earlier to form the Ordnance Division.

1. Introduction
2. World War II Origins
3. Closing the Missile Gap
4. Space Race and Vietnam
5. Booming in the Reagan Era
6. 1990s Cutbacks
7. New Ventures in the Late 1990s and Beyond
8. Major Acquisitions in 2002 and 2003
9. Principal Divisions
10. Principal Competitors
11. Further Reading
12. Copyright Page
13. About Page