Rocket Firm to Test Motor

Camarillo-based American Rocket Co. says it will test-fire the world’s largest hybrid rocket motor on Dec. 18, in what it hopes will be a turning point in the firm’s struggle to recover from a failed launch in 1989.

The new motor, called H-1800, combines solid and liquid fuels to generate 250,000 pounds of thrust, according to George Whittinghill, American Rocket’s director of marketing.

American Rocket suffered a setback three years ago when a rocket it had developed caught fire and never lifted off at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Since then, the payroll at the firm’s plant on Flynn Road has fallen from 130 to 20.

“If this new motor passes its tests and reaches the market, we hope to take part in a commercial space boom in the second half of the 1990s,� Whittinghill said. By then, he said, both government and private industry should have an increased need for motors to launch satellites that will be used in developing new medicines and metals as well as in communications and weather forecasting.

Whittinghill said the H-1800 is housed in a 32-foot-long tube made of graphite and an epoxy mixture.

Privately held American Rocket is holding discussions with larger aerospace companies in the hope of forming alliances to continue work on the new motor over the next several years, Whittinghill said.