Aerospace
Aerospace is the human effort in science and business to fly in the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Aerospace organizations research, manufacture, operate, or maintain aircraft or spacecraft. Aerospace activity is diverse, with a multitude of commercial and military applications. Aerospace is not the same as airspace, the physical air space directly above a location on the ground; the beginning of space and the ending of the air is considered as 100km above the ground according to the physical explanation that the air pressure is too low for a lifting body to generate meaningful lift force without exceeding orbital velocity. In most industrial countries, the aerospace industry is a cooperation of public and private industries. For example, several countries have a civilian space program funded by the government through tax collection, such as National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States, European Space Agency in Europe, the Canadian Space Agency in Canada, Indian Space Research Organisation in India, Japanese Aeronautics Exploration Agency in Japan, RKA in Russia, China National Space Administration in China, SUPARCO in Pakistan, Iranian Space Agency in Iran, Korea Aerospace Research Institute in South Korea.
Along with these public space programs, many companies produce technical tools and components such as spaceships and satellites. Some known companies involved in space programs include Boeing, Airbus, SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, MacDonald Dettwiler and Northrop Grumman; these companies are involved in other areas of aerospace such as the construction of aircraft. Modern aerospace began with Engineer George Cayley in 1799. Cayley proposed an aircraft with a "fixed wing and a horizontal and vertical tail," defining characteristics of the modern airplane; the 19th century saw the creation of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, the American Rocketry Society, the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, all of which made aeronautics a more serious scientific discipline. Airmen like Otto Lilienthal, who introduced cambered airfoils in 1891, used gliders to analyze aerodynamic forces; the Wright brothers read several of his publications. They found inspiration in Octave Chanute, an airman and the author of Progress in Flying Machines.
It was the preliminary work of Cayley, Lilienthal and other early aerospace engineers that brought about the first powered sustained flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903, by the Wright brothers. War and science fiction inspired great minds like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Wernher von Braun to achieve flight beyond the atmosphere; the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957 started the Space Age, on July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 achieved the first manned moon landing. In April 1981, the Space Shuttle Columbia launched, the start of regular manned access to orbital space. A sustained human presence in orbital space started with "Mir" in 1986 and is continued by the "International Space Station". Space commercialization and space tourism are more recent features of aerospace. Aerospace manufacturing is a high-technology industry that produces "aircraft, guided missiles, space vehicles, aircraft engines, propulsion units, related parts". Most of the industry is geared toward governmental work.
For each original equipment manufacturer, the US government has assigned a Commercial and Government Entity code. These codes help to identify each manufacturer, repair facilities, other critical aftermarket vendors in the aerospace industry. In the United States, the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are the two largest consumers of aerospace technology and products. Others include the large airline industry; the aerospace industry employed 472,000 wage and salary workers in 2006. Most of those jobs were in Washington state and in California, with Missouri, New York and Texas being important; the leading aerospace manufacturers in the U. S. are United Technologies Corporation, SpaceX, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. These manufacturers are facing an increasing labor shortage as skilled U. S. workers retire. Apprenticeship programs such as the Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Council work in collaboration with Washington state aerospace employers and community colleges to train new manufacturing employees to keep the industry supplied.
Important locations of the civilian aerospace industry worldwide include Washington state, California. In the European Union, aerospace companies such as EADS, BAE Systems, Dassault, Saab AB and Leonardo S.p. A. account for a large share of the global aerospace industry and research effort, with the European Space Agency as one of the largest consumers of aerospace technology and products. In India, Bangalore is a major center of the aerospace industry, where Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the National Aerospace Laboratories and the Indian Space Research Organisation are headquartered; the Indian Space Research Organisation launched India's first Moon orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, in October 2008. In Russia, large aerospace companies like Oboronprom and the United Aircraft Building Corporation are among the major global players
Farnborough, Hampshire
Farnborough is a town in north east Hampshire, part of the borough of Rushmoor and the Farnborough/Aldershot Built-up Area. Farnborough was founded in Saxon times and is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086; the name is formed from Ferneberga which means "fern hill". The town is best known for its association with aviation – Farnborough Airshow, Farnborough Aerodrome, Royal Aircraft Establishment, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch. Farnborough forms with Blackwater and Aldershot a projection of northeast Hampshire into Surrey; the River Blackwater marks the county boundary. It is centred 34 miles WSW of 16 miles east of Basingstoke, it is directly to the south of junction 4 of the M3 motorway and its Cove/West Heath parts, included its official GSS built-up area is north-west of the town centre. The town lies at the centre of the Blackwater Valley conurbation, which includes Aldershot, Yateley, Sandhurst and Farnham, its North Camp part is contiguous with the garrison town of Aldershot to the south.
Its northern parts abut Frimley to the Hawley part of Blackwater to the north. The council of the local government district of Rushmoor is based in the town, having borough status and including Aldershot. Farnborough's suburban areas include Southwood, Cove, West Heath, Farnborough Park, Farnborough Street, North Camp, South Farnborough, Fox Lane, Hawley Lane, St. John's, St. Christopher's. Within Farnborough the only occurring significant flowing water is Cove Brook; the Met Office have a weather station at Farnborough Airport, operating since 1914. Name changes: Ferneberga. Tower Hill, Cove: There is substantial evidence that many years ago a large accumulation of Sarsen stones existed upon what came to be known as Tower Hill; the town is the home of St. Michael's Abbey; the Imperial Crypt there is the resting place of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, his wife, Eugénie de Montijo, their son, Napoléon, Prince Imperial. The Abbey was the home of the Catholic National Library from 2007 until it was relocated to Durham University Library in 2015.
The River Blackwater on the Hampshire/Surrey border was the location of the first international prize fight between Tom Sayers and John C. Heenan, which took place near the location of the Ship Inn pub. Associated with Farnborough Airfield, situated between Farnborough and Fleet, is Samuel Franklin Cody. Cody, or Colonel Sam Cody as he was known, was one of the early pioneers of aviation, he died when he crashed his plane on Ball Hill, a site, now within Qinetiq's Technology Park. A statue was unveiled on the 100th anniversary of his death, 7 August 2013; the statue is sited outside the FAST museum, home of the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust, surrounded by commemorative paving paid for by supporters. Farnborough Airfield is the site of the historic Royal Aircraft Establishment. Part of the old RAE, Farnborough's historic wind tunnels are now listed buildings, two in particular preserved; the first built in 1917 and the other, much larger, in 1935. The latter was used extensively for research into Concorde aerodynamics, Formula 1 cars until its closure in the early 1990s.
The tunnels were open to the public during June and July 2014 until the end of the Farnborough International Airshow. Sir Frank Whittle conducted much of his research into jet aircraft at the RAE. A replica Gloster E.28/39 is sited on a roundabout along Ively Road in tribute to its inventor. An inn, The Tumble Down Dick Pub has been present on the A325 Farnborough Road since the 17th century, it was reputedly connected to Richard Cromwell, was the central focus of the town before its 19th-century refocus toward North Camp and the town centre proper's 20th-century development. The pub closed in 2008 and was designated an "Asset of Community Value" in 2013 after local protest over a request for planning permission by McDonald's; the ACV status was rescinded after an appeal by the site's owners. Permission was granted for the site's conversion to a McDonald's restaurant on 9 October 2013, the building reopened with a new roof in October 2014 after being allowed to lie derelict for six years. During the renovation, an early advertisement for the Reading Simmonds Brewery was discovered and is now on full display on the side of the building.
Farnborough is near junctions 4a of the M3 motorway. The A325 enters the town from Frimley to the north, continues into Aldershot to the south; the A331 runs north to south along the east side of the town. Farnborough is served by three railway stations, the busiest of, Farnborough railway station on the South Western Main Line from London Waterloo to Basingstoke and beyond. Farnborough North railway station and North Camp railway station are both on the North Downs Line between Reading and Gatwick. North Camp station is a short distance over the county border, in the Surrey village of Ash Vale. Since 2003 Farnborough Airport has been a business airport operated by TAG Aviation; the Farnborough International Airshow takes place at the airport on numbered years. Farnborough is part of the Borough of Rushmoor, along with Aldershot, it contains each with three elected borough councillors. Until 2011, there were nine wards, but following the Electoral boundary reviews and Mayfield wards were merged to create Cherrywood ward.
The full list of wards and their councillors is as follows: Southwood: Cllr. Sue Carter, Cllr. Steve Masterson, Cllr. Ma
Royal Ordnance
Royal Ordnance plc was formed on 2 January 1985 as a public corporation, owning the majority of what until were the remaining United Kingdom government-owned Royal Ordnance Factories which manufactured explosives, small arms including the Lee–Enfield rifle and military vehicles such as tanks. It owned some 16 factories. Royal Ordnance plc was bought by British Aerospace in April 1987, which became BAE Systems in 1999; the name Royal Ordnance was retained for another twenty years. The Royal Ordnance name was dropped in 2004 and after having traded as Land Systems, the division is now known as BAE Systems Global Combat Systems Munitions; the Royal Ordnance Factories can trace their history back to 1560 with the founding of the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey, Essex. This was linked to the Royal Small Arms Factory at the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. All three were based near London— but not too close in case of explosion; the title of Royal Arsenal was introduced in 1805 to encompass the Royal Laboratories, Royal Gun Factory, the Royal Carriage, which were separate and based in Greenwich.
In 1927 these three Royal Factories were transferred, within the War Office, from the Ministry of Munitions to the Department of the Master-General of the Ordnance. As World War II loomed, a further 40 ROFs were built by the Ministry of Supply, from the late 1930s into the 1940s, employed around 300,000 personnel; the number of factory sites and personnel employed shrank after the end of the Second World War. As part of its privatisation process in the 1980s, the UK Government transferred some of the separate and development capability of the Defence Research Establishments into the ROFs. Other parts of the UK's defence research and design capability were closed down; the small number of ROFs involved in nuclear weapons production, ROF Burghfield and ROF Cardiff, were removed from ROF management and did not pass over to Royal Ordnance upon privatisation. They were transferred to the control of AWRE. On 2 January 1985, Vesting day, the twelve ROFs that still remained open, plus the Waltham Abbey South site, RSAF Enfield and three Agency Factories, became a UK Government-owned company: Royal Ordnance plc.
Its headquarters was moved to Lancashire. The intention of the government at this stage was to privatise Royal Ordnance as soon as possible through a stock market flotation. In mid-1985 a target date of July 1986 was set; the following problems were identified as barriers to a flotation: The future of ROF Leeds, notably the uncertain future due to over-capacity in UK main battle tank production. The future relationship between the MOD and the company; the financial position of the company. Liabilities regarding a contract with British AerospaceThe problems associated with ROF Leeds were solved when Royal Ordnance agreed the sale of the factory and intellectual property rights of the Challenger tanks to Vickers plc on 4 October 1986, the final agreement was signed on 31 March 1987 valuing ROF Leeds at £15.2 million. Vickers became Alvis Vickers and, in 2004, became part of BAE Systems, the Leeds factory was closed; the relationship with the MOD was resolved by certain guarantees given to the company by the MOD regarding future procurement strategies.
The financial position of the company was resolved by a Treasury cash injection and the proceeds of the ROF Leeds sale. The liabilities were with regard to a sub-contract for a missile systems between British Aerospace and an MOD research establishment transferred to Royal Ordnance on Incorporation. Bids for Royal Ordnance Plc were invited in October 1986; these were reduced to two. The £188.5 million GBP BAe offer was accepted, the sale was completed on 22 April 1987. At the time of the sale, RO Defence had 16 factories. Shortly after privatisation, it has closed and sold its sites at ROF Patricroft, RSAF Enfield and Waltham Abbey South. In April 1992 BAe / RO Defence bought BMARC and Poudreries Réunies de Belgique from the receivers of the failed Astra Holdings. In 1991 RO Defence bought the small arms ammunition interests of Heckler & Koch. In 2000 the headquarters of Royal Ordnance was moved from RO Chorley to BAE Systems' Filton site, manufacturing ceased at RO Bishopton. In 1999 BAe merged with Marconi Electronic Systems, the defence interests of GEC, at the same time changing its name from British Aerospace to BAE Systems.
The Royal Ordnance sites were from onwards treated as BAE Systems owned sites with Royal Ordnance regarded as business units operating from the sites. In 2002 Heckler & Koch was sold to Heckler and Koch Beteiligungs GmbH. In 2004 BAE Systems acquired Alvis Vickers Ltd, merged with the RO Defence business and ex-GEC plants at Barrow-in-Furness and Leicester to form BAE Systems Land Systems; this organisation was further expanded in 2005 when BAE Systems took over the US company United Defense Industries and added it to the Land Systems business group to create BAE Systems Land and Armaments. These two mergers and expansions meant that t
DASA
DASA was the former aerospace subsidiary of Daimler-Benz AG from 1989. In July 2000, DASA merged with Aérospatiale-Matra and CASA to form EADS. DASA was founded on 19 May 1989 by the merger of Daimler-Benz's aerospace interests, MTU München, Dornier Flugzeugwerke. In December 1989, Daimler-Benz acquired Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm and merged it into DASA. In March 1990, Daimler-Benz initiated a major restructuring of the new group, integrating the separate companies into five product groups. Several companies continued to exist under their own names but by 1992 most were integrated. In 1992, the helicopter division was joined to Aérospatiale's helicopter division to form Eurocopter. On January 1, 1995, the company changed its name to Daimler-Benz Aerospace AG. With the 1998 merger of Daimler Benz and Chrysler Corporation, the company was renamed DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG on November 7, 1998. Defence consolidation became a major issue in 1998, with numerous reports linking various European defence groups — with each other, but with American defence contractors.
On July 10, 2000 DASA merged with Aérospatiale-Matra of France and Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA of Spain to form the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company. The former DaimlerChrysler Aerospace operated first as EADS Deutschland GmbH, now Airbus Defence and Space GmbH. In 1993 MiG Aircraft Support GmbH was established with DaimlerChrysler Aerospace holding a 50% stake; the company undertook the upgrade of the 24 MiG-29s to NATO standards. The aircraft were inherited from the former East Germany after the reunification of the country; as part of the Eurofighter consortium, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace manufactured the centre fuselage sections of all the development aircraft, beginning with DA1 which made its first flight from DaimlerChrysler Aerospace's Manching facility in March 1994. DaimlerChrysler Aerospace was responsible for the mid life upgrade of the German fleet of Panavia Tornados, similar to the RAF's GR4 upgrade. Owing to its expertise with German and NATO aircraft DaimlerChrysler Aerospace became an expert in upgrade of many allied aircraft, including the F-4 Phantom II and the E-3 Sentry.
Gunston, Bill. World Encyclopedia of Aircraft Manufacturers, 2nd Edition. Phoenix Mill, England, UK: Sutton Publishing Limited. P. 164. ISBN 0-7509-3981-8. About Daimler-Benz Aerospace
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, sometimes referred to as Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world; the Irish Sea lies between Great Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world, it is the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017. The UK is constitutional monarchy; the current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 1952, making her the longest-serving current head of state.
The United Kingdom's capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with an urban area population of 10.3 million. Other major urban areas in the UK include Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire conurbations, Greater Glasgow and the Liverpool Built-up Area; the United Kingdom consists of four constituent countries: England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Their capitals are London, Edinburgh and Belfast, respectively. Apart from England, the countries have their own devolved governments, each with varying powers, but such power is delegated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which may enact laws unilaterally altering or abolishing devolution; the nearby Isle of Man, Bailiwick of Guernsey and Bailiwick of Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. The medieval conquest and subsequent annexation of Wales by the Kingdom of England, followed by the union between England and Scotland in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, the union in 1801 of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There are fourteen British Overseas Territories, the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed a quarter of the world's land mass and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language and political systems of many of its former colonies; the United Kingdom is a developed country and has the world's fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It has a high-income economy and has a high Human Development Index rating, ranking 14th in the world, it was the world's first industrialised country and the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The UK remains a great power, with considerable economic, military and political influence internationally, it is sixth in military expenditure in the world. It has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946.
It has been a leading member state of the European Union and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. The United Kingdom is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7, the G20, NATO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization; the 1707 Acts of Union declared that the kingdoms of England and Scotland were "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". The term "United Kingdom" has been used as a description for the former kingdom of Great Britain, although its official name from 1707 to 1800 was "Great Britain"; the Acts of Union 1800 united the kingdom of Great Britain and the kingdom of Ireland in 1801, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Following the partition of Ireland and the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922, which left Northern Ireland as the only part of the island of Ireland within the United Kingdom, the name was changed to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
Although the United Kingdom is a sovereign country, Scotland and Northern Ireland are widely referred to as countries. The UK Prime Minister's website has used the phrase "countries within a country" to describe the United Kingdom; some statistical summaries, such as those for the twelve NUTS 1 regions of the United Kingdom refer to Scotland and Northern Ireland as "regions". Northern Ireland is referred to as a "province". With regard to Northern Ireland, the descriptive name used "can be controversial, with the choice revealing one's political preferences"; the term "Great Britain" conventionally refers to the island of Great Britain, or politically to England and Wales in combination. However, it is sometimes used as a loose synonym for the United Kingdom as a whole; the term "Britain" is used both as a synonym for Great Britain, as a synonym for the United Kingdom. Usage is mixed, with the BBC preferring to use Britain as shorthand only for Great Britain and the UK Government, while accepting that both terms refer to the United K
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a country in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of 2,150,000 km2, Saudi Arabia is geographically the largest sovereign state in the Middle East, the second-largest in the Arab world, the fifth-largest in Asia, the 12th-largest in the world. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south, it is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, most of its terrain consists of arid desert and mountains. As of October 2018, the Saudi economy was the largest in the Middle East and the 18th largest in the world. Saudi Arabia enjoys one of the world's youngest populations; the territory that now constitutes Saudi Arabia was the site of several ancient cultures and civilizations. The prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of human activity in the world.
The world's second-largest religion, emerged in modern-day Saudi Arabia. In the early 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad united the population of Arabia and created a single Islamic religious polity. Following his death in 632, his followers expanded the territory under Muslim rule beyond Arabia, conquering huge and unprecedented swathes of territory in a matter of decades. Arab dynasties originating from modern-day Saudi Arabia founded the Rashidun, Umayyad and Fatimid caliphates as well as numerous other dynasties in Asia and Europe; the area of modern-day Saudi Arabia consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz and parts of Eastern Arabia and Southern Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud, he united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been a totalitarian absolute monarchy a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamist lines.
The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture", with its global spread financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the two holiest places in Islam; the state's official language is Arabic. Petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the world's second largest oil producer and the world's largest largest oil exporter, controlling the world's second largest oil reserves and the sixth largest gas reserves; the kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies. The state has attracted criticism for a multitude of reasons including but not limited to: its archaic treatment of women, its excessive and extrajudicial use of capital punishment, state-sponsored discrimination against religious minorities and atheists, its role in the Yemeni Civil War, sponsorship of Islamic terrorists, its strict interpretation of Sharia Law.
An autocratic monarchy, the kingdom has the world's third-highest military expenditure and, according to SIPRI, was the world's second largest arms importer from 2010 to 2014. Saudi Arabia is considered a middle power. In addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. Following the unification of the Hejaz and Nejd kingdoms, the new state was named al-Mamlakah al-ʻArabīyah as-Suʻūdīyah by royal decree on 23 September 1932 by its founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud. Although this is translated as "the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" in English, it means "the Saudi Arab kingdom", or "the Arab Saudi Kingdom"; the word "Saudi" is derived from the element as-Suʻūdīyah in the Arabic name of the country, a type of adjective known as a nisba, formed from the dynastic name of the Saudi royal family, the Al Saud. Its inclusion expresses the view. Al Saud is an Arabic name formed by adding the word Al, meaning "family of" or "House of", to the personal name of an ancestor.
In the case of the Al Saud, this is the father of the dynasty's 18th-century founder, Muhammad bin Saud. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago, it is now believed that the first modern humans to spread east across Asia left Africa about 75,000 years ago across the Bab-el-Mandeb connecting the Horn of Africa and Arabia. The Arabian peninsula is regarded as a central figure in our understanding of hominin evolution and dispersals. Arabia underwent an extreme environmental fluctuation in the Quaternary that led to profound evolutionary and demographic changes. Arabia has a rich Lower Paleolithic record, the quantity of Oldwan-like sites in the region indicate a significant role that Arabia had played in the early hominin colonization of Eurasia. In the Neolithic period, prominent cultures such as al-Magar whose epicenter lay in mod
Raytheon
The Raytheon Company is a major U. S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007. Raytheon is the world's largest producer of guided missiles. Established in 1922, the company reincorporated in 1928 and adopted its present name in 1959; as of 2017 the company had around 64,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues of US$25.35 billion. More than 90% of Raytheon's revenues were obtained from military contracts and, as of 2012, it was the fifth-largest military contractor in the world; as of 2015, it is the third largest defense contractor in the United States by defense revenue. In 2003, Raytheon's headquarters moved from Massachusetts, to Waltham, Massachusetts; the company had been headquartered in Cambridge, from 1922 to 1928, Massachusetts, from 1928 to 1941, Waltham from 1941 to 1961 and Lexington from 1961 to 2003. In 1922, two former Tufts University School of Engineering roommates Laurence K. Marshall and Vannevar Bush, along with scientist Charles G. Smith, founded the American Appliance Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Its focus, on new refrigeration technology, soon shifted to electronics. The company's first product was a gaseous rectifier, based on Charles Smith's earlier astronomical research of the star Zeta Puppis; the electron tube was christened with the name Raytheon and was used in a battery eliminator, a type of radio-receiver power supply that plugged into the power grid in place of large batteries. This made it possible to convert household alternating current to direct current for radios and thus eliminate the need for expensive, short-lived batteries. In 1925, the company changed its name to Raytheon Manufacturing Company and began marketing its rectifier, under the Raytheon brand name, with commercial success. In 1928 Raytheon merged with Q. R. S. Company, an American manufacturer of electron tubes and switches, to form the successor of the same name, Raytheon Manufacturing Company. By the 1930s, it had grown to become one of the world's largest vacuum tube manufacturing companies. In 1933 it diversified by acquiring Acme-Delta Company, a producer of transformers, power equipment, electronic auto parts.
Early in World War II, physicists in the United Kingdom invented the magnetron, a specialized microwave-generating electron tube that markedly improved the capability of radar to detect enemy aircraft. American companies were sought by the US government to perfect and mass-produce the magnetron for ground-based and shipborne radar systems, with support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Radiation Laboratory, Raytheon received a contract to build the devices. Within a few months of being awarded the contract, Raytheon had begun to mass manufacture magnetron tubes for use in radar sets and complete radar systems. At war's end in 1945 the company was responsible for about 80 percent of all magnetrons manufactured. During the war Raytheon pioneered the production of shipboard radar systems for submarine detection. Raytheon ranked 71st among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. Raytheon's research on the magnetron tube revealed the potential of microwaves to cook food.
In 1945, Raytheon's Percy Spencer invented the microwave oven by discovering that the magnetron could heat food. In 1947, the company demonstrated the Radarange microwave oven for commercial use. In 1945, the company expanded its electronics capability through acquisitions that included the Submarine Signal Company, a leading manufacturer of maritime safety equipment. With its broadened capabilities, Raytheon developed the first guidance system for a missile that could intercept a flying target. In 1948, Raytheon began to manufacture guided missiles. In 1950, its Lark missile became the first such weapon to destroy a target aircraft in flight. Raytheon received military contracts to develop the air-to-air Sparrow and ground-to-air Hawk missiles—projects that received impetus from the Korean War. In decades, it remained a major producer of missiles, among them the Patriot antimissile missile and the air-to-air Phoenix missile. In 1959, Raytheon acquired the marine electronics company Apelco Applied Electronics, which increased its strength in commercial marine navigation and radio gear, as well as less-expensive Japanese suppliers of products such as marine/weather band radios and direction-finding gear.
In the same year, it changed its name to Raytheon Company. During the post-war years, Raytheon made low- to medium-powered radio and television transmitters and related equipment for the commercial market, but the high-powered market was solidly in the hands of larger, better financed competitors such as Continental Electronics, General Electric and Radio Corporation of America. In the 1950s, Raytheon began manufacturing transistors, including the CK722, priced and marketed to hobbyists. In 1961, the British electronics company A. C. Cossor merged with Raytheon; the new Company's name was Raytheon Cossor. The Cossor side of the organisation is still current in the Raytheon group As of 2010. In 1965, it acquired Amana Inc. a manufacturer of refrigerators and air conditioners. Using the Amana brand name and its distribution channels, Raytheon began selling the first countertop household microwave oven in 1967 and became a dominant manufacturer in the microwave oven business. In 1966, the company entered the educational publ
