Florida-based L3Harris today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne, two days after the Federal Trade Commission gave its OK for the deal.
The acquisition, which was valued at $4.7 billion when the agreement was announced last December, adds Aerojet’s expertise in rocket propulsion systems to L3Harris’ portfolio of space and defense technologies.
“I’m thrilled to welcome more than 5,000 employees to the L3Harris team today,” L3Harris’ chair and CEO, Christopher Kubasik, said in a news release. “With national security at the forefront, we’re combining our resources and expertise with Aerojet Rocketdyne’s propulsion and energetics capabilities to ensure that the Department of Defense and civil space customers can address critical mission needs globally.”
Going forward, Aerojet Rocketdyne will be known as “Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company.” The upward-swooping rocket in Aerojet’s logo has been replaced by L3Harris’ buckyball logo, and Aerojet’s main internet domains — Aerojet.com and Rocket.com — now redirect to L3Harris.com.
The acquisition isn’t expected to affect operations at Aerojet’s facility in Redmond, Wash., where about 470 employees work on a wide range of small thruster systems. The Redmond operation traces its lineage back to Rocket Research Corp., which was founded in Seattle by former Boeing engineers in 1959. Scores of spacecraft, including Mars rovers and NASA’s Orion moonship, have used thrusters built in Redmond.
Before the L3Harris deal, Lockheed Martin mounted an attempt to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne — but terminated the agreement early last year when the FTC sought to block the acquisition due to antitrust concerns.
