SACRAMENTO, Calif., June 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE: GY) company, played a key role in Saturday's successful launch of United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite O, or GOES-O, for NASA and NOAA. Aerojet provided reaction control thrusters for the Delta IV upper stage, as well as bipropellant chemical propulsion for the satellite.

Twelve Aerojet monopropellant (hydrazine) thrusters on the Delta IV upper stage provided roll, pitch and yaw control as well as settling burns for the upper stage main engine. Aerojet also provided the Boeing GOES-O spacecraft with a 100 lbf bipropellant apogee engine which will be used for circularizing the spacecraft's orbit.

"Aerojet is proud to support the GOES-O satellite in its weather monitoring and prediction mission," said John Whaley, Aerojet's executive director of Redmond Operations. "By successfully guiding the satellite to orbit, Aerojet has helped improve the accuracy of our weather predictions."

Aerojet's Redmond, Wash. team manufactured the reaction control thrusters for ULA, and the apogee engine was designed, produced and tested under contract to The Boeing Company.

Aerojet is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader principally serving the missile and space propulsion, defense and armaments markets. GenCorp is a leading technology-based manufacturer of aerospace and defense products and systems with a real estate segment that includes activities related to the entitlement, sale, and leasing of the company's excess real estate assets. Additional information about Aerojet and GenCorp can be obtained by visiting the companies' Web sites at http://www.Aerojet.com and http://www.GenCorp.com.

SOURCE Aerojet

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