Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne’s RS-27A Engine Boosts Missile Defense Demonstration Satellites

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) company, helped boost two tandem Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) demonstrator satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., today. The satellites were onboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket launched for NASA, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-27A engine. It was the 231st successful flight boosted by the RS-27 family of engines.

“It is always exciting to watch our engine perform in support of a crucial mission that aids our national defense,” said Elizabeth Jones, RS-27A program manager, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. “I am especially proud of the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and United Launch Alliance team that has been working together to make this mission possible.”

The demonstrator satellites are designed to prove the key functions of space-based sensors for the Missile Defense Agency. They will acquire, track and discriminate ballistic missiles and communicate the data to other elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System via the Missile Defense Space Experimentation Center ground station to provide sensor information for all phases of the missiles’ flight.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Inc., a part of Pratt & Whitney, is a preferred provider of high-value propulsion, power, energy and innovative system solutions used in a wide variety of government and commercial applications, including the main engines for the space shuttle, Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, missile defense systems and advanced hypersonic engines.

Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and commercial building industries.