Moon rocket boosts local job prospects
Pratt & Whitney to add 200 software engineers over year
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
NASA's plan to return to the moon is bringing more rocket engine work and 200 new jobs to Huntsville over the next year.
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Inc. plans to consolidate software and other rocket engineering work in Huntsville, moving it from sites in California and Florida, said Rick Bachtel, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne operations director in Huntsville.
The new work will support NASA's Ares I crew launch vehicle being designed in Huntsville at Marshall Space Flight Center. The Ares I will use Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's J-2X engine to power the upper stage of the new moon rocket.
Bachtel said the jobs will be filled by hiring people here and moving people from other locations.
No details are available about how many people would move, Bachtel said, but early estimates predict 40 or 50 might relocate from other Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne locations.
"We would like to hire locally as much as possible, but there will probably be some positions filled by people who come from other areas," said John Plowden, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's general manager of customer sites. "It's a tough market in Huntsville, because everybody is looking for the same quality people you have here."
The rocket engine company's Huntsville employees write and test software that controls the space shuttle main engine's valves and other engine parts, Bachtel said. "We also do some integration and testing work of that here," he said.
"We want to expand that to include all software design and control work" for all of the company's major rocket engines, Bachtel said.
Also, Bachtel said, the company will increase research and development work in advanced materials and advanced programs such as design work on an advanced RL-10 rocket engine.
The RL-10, now under development, is based on an engine design that has been in use since 1959. The RL-10 would allow an astronaut to control, or throttle, the engine's power during a landing on the moon, Bachtel said.
Bachtel said the company may expand over the next few years as NASA awards more contracts for a return trip to the moon.
"In addition to the J-2X, which will power the upper stage, we want to get involved in work on the upper stage itself," Bachtel said.
Plowden said the company also wants to design and develop small thrusters that would guide the Ares I manned rocket.
Pratt & Whitney also manages the RS-68 engine used by Boeing Co. on its Delta IV rocket made in Decatur. NASA plans to use a modified RS-68 for the large Ares V cargo rocket.
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