Chapter Three
The Sixties
The race into space
1960 - Project Advent
1961 - T-10 Trainer contract
1962 - Rocket "Reaction Control" system for Apollo Service Module
1963 - LEM
1964 - 20th Anniversary celebrated
1965 - 100-lb thrust rocket engines in qualification tests
1966 - First unmanned Apollo mission
1967 - Electronic Doppler Navigation system designed
1968 - Crane Carrier Inc. purchases controlling interest in Marquardt
1969 - Artificial Kidney Dialysis machine developed
The Fifties went out with a
bang. The Company had earned a 100%
dividend for its stockholders, sales were at an all time high of $70 million a
year, the Ogden plant was running at capacity building both models of the
Bomarc missile ramjets, and the future looked extremely promising. The Van Nuys facility had undergone extensive
improvements in the previous couple of years and was ready to reap the harvest
of years of cutting edge experimentation in air breathing technology. The Company would flourish in the Sixties, but
not in Air breathing engines or ramjets as was anticipated. It would be the decade of space travel and
Marquardt would be one of the major players in getting our Astronauts to the
Moon and back.
In the course of investigating space
vehicle requirements in 1958, Power Systems’ scientists and engineers uncovered
a need for small reaction control engines, which could operate in a pulsing
mode. This discovery evolved from
research and development work done in 1958 on a space power unit, which would
generate electrical power in space, and could run on rocket fuel. Feasibility of this engine was demonstrated
successfully and in the course of technical discussions with several airframe
companies, it was suggested that the engine’s injector technology might have
application to a small rocket engine.
Thus, a small rocket engine, capable of operating in a pulsing mode as a
reaction control engine for space application, was developed and tested. These successful tests led to Marquardt
receiving several important contracts for these engines.
Marquardt’s success in the small
rocket field was marked by these important factors: the Company saw a need for
this type of engine, and through its own research and development programs,
successfully developed a pulsing rocket engine with a unique radiation cooled
thrust chamber. These factors, combined
with Marquardt’s excellent test facilities, led to the acquisition of several
major space oriented contracts in 1960.
General Electric awarded Marquardt a contract for its PAT-C
(Position-Attitude-Trajectory Control) system as the orbit control for Project
ADVENT, an Army-sponsored advanced communications satellite project. This was the first of many contracts the
Company would receive in space applications for its control systems. (Note: Roy Marquardt’s second wife was named
Patzi, aka: PAT-C)
Marquardt’s breadwinner remained the
Bomarc ramjet and the
One result of efforts to achieve new
applications for its ramjet engines was a subcontract from North American for
the development of the cruise propulsion system for the Army’s NA-273 target
missile. This would be Marquardt’s first
effort for the Army, after a long and profitable relationship with both the
Navy and Air Force. The Air Force had
continuously supported Marquardt’s applied research program on advanced
air-breathing engine technology since 1948, but in 1960 its focus was
redirected to support advanced ideas and concepts for use in aerospace
applications. Many ideas for new and
novel propulsion systems were generated under this program and promised to give
propulsion performances several times that which was then possible. These new propulsion concepts opened up many
possibilities for a wide variety of future space endeavors. In the past, this program supplied the basis
for the development of the Super Bomarc engine, the Hyperjet, and other still
classified propulsion concepts.
One of the ongoing projects was
development of a nuclear powered ramjet for Project PLUTO. This propulsion system was intended to be
used on a low-altitude missile of supersonic speed with unlimited range. Marquardt designed and delivered to the AEC’s
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, various control, structural, and aerodynamic
components for LRL’s ToryIIA reactor test program at the Nevada Test Site. In addition, development of selected
flight-type nuclear instrumentation and control components continued, including
an ion chamber (neutron detector) designed for service at over 1000 degrees
F. Preliminary design studies on several
advanced nuclear systems were undertaken including; a new concept for a reactor
system capable of providing economical electric power in small (5,000 to 20.000
kilowatts) electric generating stations, known as the DCDR (Direct Cycle
Diphenyl Reactor), and a portable air-cooled reactor (PAR) which has
application for remote military installations.
A radiation effects laboratory was constructed at the Van Nuys plant to
support the nuclear activities and provide for nuclear environmental testing
and the handling of radioactive components and materials.
The Marquardt Jet Laboratory-Van
Nuys was expanded in 1960 to include, four additional test stands, a chemical
laboratory equipped to conduct a variety of propellant studies, and an annex
which doubled the size of the standards laboratory. The Saugus Research Field Laboratory expanded
its capability to include liquid metal heat transfer studies, cryogenics,
materials evaluation and electrostatic propulsion research. Roy Marquardt’s philosophy of staffing 30
percent of the Company in engineering was paying big dividends in new concepts
and programs. The unfortunate side is
that some of the concepts were so far ahead of their time that they were
unworkable due to the lack of acceptable materials. One example is the Marquardt developed
Scramjet which was tested to Mach 8 in the 1960’s but was shelved because no
guidance system existed that could control it at that speed and composites
hadn’t yet been invented. Forty years
later the Scramjet is making a comeback, unfortunately Marquardt won’t be there
to see it.
The big news in 1961 was the
awarding of a contract to Marquardt by North American Aviation for the
development of reaction control rocket engines for the Project Apollo
spacecraft. Though it wasn’t fully
realized at the time, this contract would be the beginning of a long and
profitable journey into the aerospace business which continued right up to the
day the plant was closed in 2001. The
name Marquardt became known as the reliable reaction control thruster company
and would set the standards for the industry.
During the Apollo program 453 engines were flown in space and logged
more than 875,000 pulses with the equivalent time of 16 years in space. Since Apollo there have been even greater
numbers of Marquardt engines flown on very expensive military and civilian
satellites, the space shuttle, and deep space explorations. The Marquardt administration and employees
can be very proud that they were involved with a product that proved its
reliability under fire and never had a Marquardt thruster fail to operate in
space.
Research and Development contracts
provided nearly 50% of sales in 1961.
The two largest programs, both for the Air Force, were Pluto, which was
concerned with the feasibility of nuclear ramjet engines for low altitude
missile propulsion, and the Aerospace Propulsion Program, which was concerned
with the feasibility of various systems which might provide continuous
propulsion through the atmosphere and out into space. A large part of this contract work for the
Air Force was devoted to the liquid air cycle engine (LACE), an airbreathing
rocket which manufactures its own oxidizer by collecting and liquefying
atmospheric air, and using hydrogen as a refrigerant and fuel. Also under analytical and experimental
examination was a nuclear version of the liquid air cycle engine (NULACE)
resulting from experimental results of tests at speeds never before achieved in
airbreathing engine work.
In the meantime, Marquardt’s other
endeavors were paying the bills. The
contract for the development and production of trainer-simulators for the
GAM-77 Hound Dog and GAM-72 Quail missiles was increased with production to
continue into 1962. Production continued
on inlet controls for the McDonnell F4H Phantom fighter and the North American
GAM-77 Hound Dog missile, and ram air turbines for the Ling-Temco-Vought F8U
Crusader aircraft. More than 1200 ram
air turbine emergency power units were shipped to the customer from the
contract’s beginning in 1953 to the end of 1961. A new contract was signed for an additional
103 units to be built in 1962.
A significant decision was made in
late 1961 when Marquardt entered into a licensing agreement with the Southern
Pacific Company to develop, manufacture and market an electronic railway-crossing
signal device. The agreement represented
the Company’s entry into the non-defense industrial market and led to the
formation of the Industrial Products Division in
From its start just two years
earlier on bi-propellant reaction control system development, Marquardt’s space
activities, in 1961, led to the field of reaction control systems for
satellites. The orbital control for
ADVENT, which was based on the Marquardt PAT-C (Position Attitude Trajectory
Control) system progressed well into the development stage. Among technical accomplishments for the
program, which was contracted from General Electric, was a life cycle test of
the rocket engine. Two continuous runs
of 84 and 95 minutes were accomplished, far exceeding the ADVENT duty cycle.
Tests of a prototype “Resistojet”
began in late 1961 for the Air Force, and initial performance levels appeared
to be very good. The “Resistojet” is an
electric resistance-heated hydrogen rocket having promising potential for
cislunar (near space) missions. Under
NASA sponsorship, ASTRO initiated investigations of the magnetohydrodynamic
rocket and studies of flow phenomena in arc-jet engines. The foregoing, plus electro-magnetic ramjet
experiments and ion rocket component research being conducted for the Air
Force, all served to firmly establish the Company’s position in the electronic
propulsion field. Classified experiments
in bioastronautics were focused on an algae-animal closed ecological system,
and deep hypothermia (hibernation) for extended space travel.