Aerojet Rocketdyne ’ s MR-80B throttling descent thrusters for NASA ’ s Perseverance mission in processing at the company ’ s Redmond , Washington , site .
If you enjoy feature films about space , it would be easy to envision a spacecraft hovering over a planet in its final descent to touch down . Those last moments , of landing , can cause the captive audience sweaty palms and nail biting .
We wonder …
“ Will they or won ’ t they successfully land on the planet ?”
“ Will the crew arrive safely so that they can complete their mission ?”
The soft landing , often witnessed in these films , is brought to you by U . S . - based Aerojet Rocketdyne and their thrusters . You ’ ve seen their thrusters in many movies , externally firing at the bottom of the spacecraft ; and in non-fiction applications such as an Apollo 11 moon landing . More recently , their engines were seen seamlessly guiding the NASA Perseverance Rover onto Mars .
Developed with NASA Glenn Research Center and JPL , Aerojet Rocketdyne is working to qualify the 13kW Advanced Electric Propulsion System ( AEPS ) for use on the Lunar Gateway ’ s Power and Propulsion Element .
In the Apollo 13 movie ( 1995 ), there was a scene where the space capsule went into a spin . According to Kenneth Young , general manager of Aerojet Rocketdyne in Redmond , Washington , those thrusters the movie scene was based off of were made by Aerojet Rocketdyne . In Apollo 11 ( 2019 documentary ), there was a moon landing scene where the astronauts were concerned with landing on rocky ground and were wondering if they had enough fuel to land ; again , the concepts portrayed were straight from Aerojet Rocketdyne technology .
Young manages all the facets of the Redmond location including manufacturing , operations , logistics and business development . He said , “ All in-space propulsion business lives and resides here in Redmond .”
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