TRW

This article is about the defunct company. For the current company with a similar name, see TRW Automotive.

This article is about the defunct company. For the Specific Area Message Encoding event, see Tropical storm warning.

TRW Inc.

Industry	Automotive and aerospace
Fate	Acquired
Successor	TRW Automotive, Northrop Grumman and Goodrich Corporation
Founded	1901
Defunct	2002
Headquarters	Euclid, Ohio / Lyndhurst, Ohio, United States
Key people	Simon Ramo, Dean Wooldridge
Products	Automotive, aerospace and credit reporting
Employees	122,258[1]
Subsidiaries	CAV, Girling, LucasVarity Automotive & Lucas Aerospace

TRW Inc. was an American corporation involved in a variety of businesses, mainly aerospace, automotive, and credit reporting. It was a pioneer in multiple fields including electronic components, integrated circuits, computers, software and systems engineering. TRW built many spacecraft, including Pioneer 1, Pioneer 10, and several space-based observatories. It was #57 on the Fortune 500 list, and had 122,258 employees.

TRW’s roots were founded in 1901, and it lasted more than a century until being acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002. It helped create a variety of corporations, including Pacific Semiconductors, the Aerospace Corporation, Bunker-Ramo, Experian, and TRW Automotive which is now #159 on the Fortune 500.

In 1953, the company was recruited to lead the development of America’s first ICBM. Starting with the initial design by Convair, the multi-corporate team launched Atlas in 1957 after some spectacular failures. It flew its full range in 1958, and was adapted to fly the Mercury astronauts into orbit. TRW also lead development of the Titan missile, which was later adapted to fly the Gemini missions. The company served the Air Force as systems engineers on all subsequent ICBM development efforts, but TRW never produced any missile hardware because of the conflict of interest. In 1960, Congress spurred the formation of the non-profit Aerospace Corporation to provide systems engineering to the US government, but TRW continued to guide the ICBM efforts.

History

TRW originated in 1901 with the Cleveland Cap Screw Company, founded by David Kurtz and four other Cleveland residents.^[2] Their initial products were bolts with heads electrically welded to the shafts. In 1904, a welder named Charles E. Thompson adapted their process to making automobile engine valves,^[2] and by 1915 they were the largest valve producer in America.^[3] Charles Thompson was named General Manager of the company, which became Thompson Products in 1926.^[4] Their experimental hollow sodium-cooled valves aided Charles Lindberg’s solo flight across the Atlantic.^[3]

In 1950, Simon Ramo and Dean Wooldridge worked for Hughes Aircraft, leading the development of the Falcon radar-guided missile, among other projects. They grew frustrated with Howard Hughes’ management, and formed the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation in September 1953,^[4] with the financial support of Thompson Products.^[5] The detonation of a thermonuclear bomb by the Soviet Union spurred Trevor Gardner to form the Teapot Committee in October 1953. Chaired by John von Neumann, its purpose was to study the development of ballistic missiles, including ICBMs. Ramo and Wooldridge were committee members, and Ramo-Wooldridge Corp. became the lead contractor of the resulting ICBM development effort, reporting to the Air Force.

With continued backing from Thompson Products, Ramo-Wooldridge diversified into computers and electronic components, funding Pacific Semiconductors in 1954.^[6] They also produced scientific spacecraft such as Pioneer 1. Thompson Products and Ramo-Wooldridge merged in October 1958 to form Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc.^[4] In February 1959, Jimmy Doolittle became Chairman of the Board of Space Technology Laboratories (STL), the division which continued to support the Air Force ICBM efforts.^[4]

Other aerospace companies challenged that TRW’s Air Force advisory role granted it unfair access to its competitors’ technology,^[6] and in September 1959 the US Congress issued a report recommending that STL be converted to a non-profit organization. With nearly half of STL’s employees,^[4] the Aerospace Corporation was formed in June 1960, which headed the Atlas conversion for Mercury, Titan conversion for Gemini, and provides ongoing systems engineering support for the US government. The Air Force continued its ICBM work with TRW.^[5]

Dean Wooldridge retired in January 1962^[4] to become a professor at Caltech.^[5] Simon Ramo became President of the Bunker-Ramo Corp in January 1964, a company jointly owned by TRW and Martin-Marietta for the production of computers and displays. Thompson Ramo Wooldridge officially became TRW Inc in July 1965.^[4] Free of anti-competitive restrictions except regarding ICBM hardware, STL was renamed TRW Systems Group, also in July 1965.^[4] The Credit Data group was formed in 1970^[4] to compete with Dunn and Bradstreet,^[5] and ESL was acquired in 1978,^[4] specializing in technical strategic reconnaissance. TRW Information Systems and Services Division (Credit Data) was spun off in 1996 to form Experian.^[7] TRW acquired LucasVarity in 1999, then sold Lucas Diesel Systems to Delphi, and Lucas Aerospace (then called TRW Aeronautical Systems) to Goodrich Corporation.^[8]

The company was #57^[9] on the Fortune 500 list of highest revenue American companies in 1986, and had 122,258 employees in 2000,^[1] They had operations in 25 countries.^[5]

In February 2002 Northrop Grumman launched a $5.9 billion hostile bid for TRW. A bidding war between Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems and General Dynamics ended on July 1, 2002 when Northrop's increased bid of $7.8bn (£5.1bn) was accepted. Soon afterward, the automotive assets of Lucas, Varity and TRW's own automotive group were sold to the Blackstone Group as TRW Automotive.^[10]

Aerospace

TRW Inc. was active in the development of missile systems and spacecraft, notably the early development of the U.S. ICBM program under the leadership of the Teapot Committee led by John von Neumann. TRW pioneered systems engineering, and created the ubiquitous N² chart and the modern functional flow block diagram. They served as the primary source of systems engineering for the United States Air Force ballistic missile programs.^[11]

Space exploration

Space Technology Laboratories (STL), then a division of Ramo-Wooldridge Corp., designed and produced the identical payloads for Pioneer 0, 1 and 2. These were intended to orbit and photograph the Moon, but launch vehicle problems prevented this. NASA launched Pioneer 1 as its first spacecraft on October 11, 1958.^[12] It set a distance record from Earth, and provided data on the extent of Earth's radiation belts.

Pioneer 10 and 11 were nearly identical spacecraft, designed and fabricated by TRW Systems Group.^[13] They were optimized for ruggedness since they were the first man-made objects to pass through the asteroid belt and Jupiter's radiation belt. Simplicity, redundancy, and use of proven components were essential.^[14] As NASA's first all-atomic powered spacecraft,^[15] these used plutonium-238 units developed by Teledyne Isotopes.^[16] Pioneer 10 carried 11 instruments, and Pioneer 11 carried 12, for investigating Jupiter and Saturn, respectively.^[17] Data was transmitted back to Earth at 8 Watts, 128 byte/s at Jupiter,^[18] and 1 byte/s from further out. Pioneer 10 was the first man-made object past the planetary orbits, and its last telemetry was received in 2002, 30 years after launch.^[19]

TRW designed and built the descent engine for the Apollo lunar lander. Due to the need for a soft landing on the Moon, it was the first throttleable engine for manned space flight. This, and the requirements for high thrust, low weight, and crushability (in case of landing on a large rock),^[20] earned surprising praise from NASA's history pages, considering the complexity of the lunar missions: "The lunar module descent engine probably was the biggest challenge and the most outstanding technical development of Apollo".^[21] This engine was used on Apollo 13 to achieve free return trajectory and make a minor course correction after damage to the Service Module.

TRW Systems Group designed and built the instrument package which performed the Martian biological experiments,^[22] searching for life aboard the two Viking Landers launched in 1975. The 34 lb (15.5 kg) system performed four experiments on Martian soil using a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) and a combined biological instrument.

Space-based observatories

TRW designed and built the following space observatories:

• HEAO 1, 2, and 3, with HEAO 2 being the Einstein Observatory, the first fully imaging X-ray telescope put into space
• Compton Gamma Ray Observatory which is the second of four among NASA'a Great Observatories program
• Chandra X-ray Observatory is the third of NASA's Great Observatories

The teams developing the following observatories are continuing their work as part of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems:

• SIM Lite space telescope which will search for Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones around nearby stars (project cancelled)
• James Webb Space Telescope^[23] which will be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope

Satellites

TRW Systems Group designed and manufactured the Vela series of nuclear detection satellites which monitored the 1963 establishment of the nuclear Partial Test Ban Treaty.^[24] Subsequently, they produced the Advanced Vela series, first launched in 1967, which could detect nuclear air bursts using instruments actually called bhangmeters. It had the first dual-spin attitude control system with the total system momentum controlled to zero.^[25] The Vela and Advanced Vela satellites were the first to alert astronomers to the presence of gamma-ray bursts. They also reported a mysterious apparent nuclear test now called the Vela Incident.

First launched in 1970, the company built all 23 reconnaissance satellites in the Defense Support Program (DSP), which are the principal components of the Satellite Early Warning System currently used by the United States. These are operated by the Air Force Space Command, and they detect missile or spacecraft launches and nuclear explosions using sensors that detect the infrared emissions from these intense sources of heat. During Desert Storm, for example, DSP satellites were able to detect the launches of Iraqi Scud missiles and provide timely warnings to civilians and military forces in Israel and Saudi Arabia.^[26]

The initial seven Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) were built by TRW to improve communication coverage for the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and US military satellites. When first launched in 1983, the TDRS satellites were the largest, most sophisticated communications satellites ever built.^[27] The seventh vehicle in the series was ordered as a replacement when TDRS-2 was lost in the Challenger accident.

Launched in 2002, TRW produced the Aqua spacecraft based on their modular standardized satellite bus.^[28] A joint project of the United States, Japan, and Brazil, Aqua delivers 750 Gigabytes per day detailing the Earth's water cycle in the oceans, lakes, atmosphere, polar ice caps, and vegetation.

Semiconductors and computers

The Ramo-Wooldridge Corp formed Pacific Semiconductors in 1954^[6] to produce the recently invented transistor for commercial sales.

The company manufactured the RW-300 for sales in 1959, one of the first "all-transistor" computers^[6] with a power supply that used vacuum tubes. The computer was targeted at industrial control applications, with 1024 analog inputs multiplexed to a 1.9K sample/s 10-bit analog-to-digital converter which was transparent to the programmer.^[29][30] The real-time operating system was written by John Neblett, and was the intellectual precursor of the RSX-11 operating system for the PDP-11.^[31]

The TRW-130 computer was introduced in 1961,^[32] and designated the AN/UYK-1 by the US Navy as part of its pre-GPS TRANSIT (NAVSAT) satellite-based location system. It used Doppler shifts to compute a location in about 15 minutes, and had rounded corners to allow installation in submarines.

The TTL logic gate, which was the electronics industry standard for two decades, was invented by TRW's James L. Buie in 1961.

In 1965, engineers Don Nelson and Dick Pick at TRW developed the Generalized Information Retrieval Language and System,^[33] for use by the U.S. Army to control the inventory of Cheyenne helicopter parts. This developed into the Pick Database Management System.

TRW LSI Products, Inc. was a wholly owned subsidiary formed to commercialize the integrated circuit technology the company had developed in support of its aerospace business. They produced some of the first commercially available digital signal processing ICs including the TDC1008 multiplier-accumulator.^[34] They also made the first 8-bit flash ADC IC, the TDC1007,^[35] resulting in an Emmy Award for analog/digital video conversion technology.^[36]

In the media

Christopher John Boyce was a TRW employee convicted of selling security secrets to the Soviet Union via the Soviet embassy in Mexico City in the mid-1970s. Boyce and his accomplice, Andrew Daulton Lee, were the subjects of the best-selling Robert Lindsey book The Falcon and the Snowman, and the 1985 film of the same title.

Awards

• 1974 Nelson P. Jackson Aerospace Award to TRW Systems Group with NASA Ames Research Center for Pioneer 10^[37]
• 1978 Nelson P. Jackson Aerospace Award for HEAO Program^[38]
• 1988-89 Emmy Award for analog/digital video conversion technology to TRW LSI Products^[36]
• 1990 Goddard Award for Quality and Productivity to Space and Technology Group^[39]
• 1992 Nelson P. Jackson Aerospace Award to Space and Technology Group with NASA for Compton Gamma Ray Observatory^[40][41]
• 2001 Nelson P. Jackson Aerospace Award to TRW Systems Group with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for Chandra X-ray Observatory^[42]
• 2004 Nelson P. Jackson Aerospace Award to Northrop Grumman (formerly TRW) Space Technology Sector with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for TDRSS^[43]

See also

• Dean Wooldridge
• Northrop Grumman
• Simon Ramo
• Systems engineering
• Thompson Trophy

References

1. ^ ^{a b} http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/snapshots/2000/1461.html Fortune 500
2. ^ ^{a b} "Charles E. Thompson (American businessman) - Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Britannica.com. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/850329/Charles-E-Thompson. Retrieved 2011-10-23. 
3. ^ ^{a b} http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/industry/trw.htm | TRW
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} http://tra-spacepark.org/docs/TRW_History.pdf TRW History
5. ^ ^{a b c d e} http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/TRW-Inc-Company-History.html TRW Inc.
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders, by John N. Ingham, Greenwood Publishing Group
7. ^ Experian Information Solutions Inc.
8. ^ Goodrich buys TRW's aeronautical arm
9. ^ Fortune 500
10. ^ Northrop Grumman agrees to buy TRW for $7.8bn in stock
11. ^ [1] extract from the USAF Space and Missile Systems Center's History Office
12. ^ [2] Pioneer 0, 1, 2
13. ^ [3] Page 39
14. ^ [4] Page 44
15. ^ [5] First into the Outer Solar System
16. ^ [6] The Pioneer Jupiter Team
17. ^ [7] The Pioneer Missions
18. ^ [8] The Pioneer Jupiter Mission
19. ^ [9] Farewell Pioneer 10
20. ^ [10] TRW: Pioneering Technology and Innovation since 1900 by Davis Dyer pp. 272-273
21. ^ [11] Engines, Large and Small
22. ^ [12] Scientists, Instruments, and Subcontractors
23. ^ [13] Webb: Past and Future
24. ^ [14] Vela
25. ^ [15] Advanced Vela
26. ^ "Defense Support program". FAS. http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/warning/dsp.htm. 
27. ^ TDRS
28. ^ The Earth Observing System Aqua
29. ^ [16] RW-300
30. ^ [17] RW-300 info
31. ^ [18] Wikipedia RSX-11 External links
32. ^ [19] AN/UYK-1
33. ^ [20] Computer History 1960 - 1980
34. ^ TRW LSI Products VLSI Data Book, 1984
35. ^ [21] ADC Architectures 1
36. ^ ^{a b} [22] Outstanding Achievement in Technical/Engineering Development Awards
37. ^ [23] Major Professional Awards Won by AMES Pesonnel 1940-1980
38. ^ [24] Mission Planning
39. ^ [25] Chapter 4: Ames in the 1990s
40. ^ [26] US Black Engineer & IT 1994
41. ^ [27] Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1991-1995. NASA SP-2000-4028
42. ^ [28] Chandra X-ray Observatory team wins Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Trophy
43. ^ [29] NASA Goddard Captures Prestigious Nelson P. Jackson Aerospace Award

External links

• Astronautix TRW page
• Northrop Grumman TRW Heritage webpage
• TRW Automotive website
• TRW Conekt Automotive Research, Test and Development website