company . for the automotive company with a similar name see see trw automotive . 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 number of employees 122 258 1 subsidiaries cav girling lucasvarity automotive & lucas aerospace website www.trw.com trw inc. was an american corporation involved in a variety of businesses mainly aerospace automotive and credit reporting . 2 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 3 and had 122 258 employees . 1 trw s roots were founded in 1901 and it lasted for more than a century until being acquired by northrop grumman in 2002 . it helped create a variety of corporations including thompson ramo wooldridge source of trw acronym pacific semiconductors the aerospace corporation bunker ramo experian and trw automotive which is now part of zf friedrichshafen . persons coming from trw were important to build up corporations like spacex . 4 5 in 1953 the company was recruited to lead the development of the united states first icbm . 6 7 starting with the initial design by convair the multi corporate team launched atlas in 1957 . 8 it flew its full range in 1958 and was adapted to fly the mercury astronauts into orbit . 8 trw also led development of the titan missile 6 which was later adapted to fly the gemini missions . the company served the us air force as systems engineers on all subsequent icbm development efforts 9 but trw never produced any missile hardware because of the conflict of interest . 10 in 1960 congress spurred the formation of the non profit aerospace corporation to provide systems engineering to the us government 6 but trw continued to guide the icbm efforts . contents 1 history 2 aerospace 2.1 space exploration 2.2 space based observatories 2.3 satellites 2.4 rocket engines 3 semiconductors and computers 4 in the media 5 awards 6 see also 7 references 8 external links history edit trw originated in 1901 with the cleveland cap screw company founded by david kurtz and four other cleveland residents . 11 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 11 and by 1915 the company was the largest valve producer in the united states . 12 charles thompson was named general manager of the company which became thompson products in 1926 . 13 their experimental hollow sodium cooled valves aided charles lindbergh s solo flight across the atlantic . 12 in 1937 thompson motor products bought j. a. drake and sons jadson . citation needed the company made high performance valves that were used in many racing engines of the day including the miller offy . citation needed dale drake son of j. a. drake bought the offy engine design with his partner louis meyer in 1946 and won the indianapolis 500 twenty seven times more than any other engine design . during the period leading up to world war ii through the end of the korean war thompson products was a key manufacturer of component parts for aircraft engines including aircraft valves . the tapco plant owned by the u.s. government but operated by thompson products extended for almost a mile along cleveland s euclid avenue . it employed over 16 000 workers at the peak of ww ii production . as jet aircraft replaced piston engined aircraft thompson products became a major manufacturer of turbine blades for jet engines in 1950 simon ramo and dean wooldridge while working for hughes aircraft led 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 13 with the financial support of thompson products . 2 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 united states air force . with continued backing from thompson products ramo wooldridge diversified into computers and electronic components founding pacific semiconductors in 1954 . 14 15 they also produced scientific spacecraft such as pioneer 1 . thompson products and ramo wooldridge merged in october 1958 to form thompson ramo wooldridge inc. unofficially known as trw . 13 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 . 13 other aerospace companies challenged that trw s air force advisory role granted it unfair access to its competitors technology 14 and in september 1959 the united states congress issued a report recommending that stl be converted to a non profit organization . with nearly half of stl s employees 13 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 united states government . the air force continued its icbm work with trw . 2 during fiscal years 1961 through 1963 trw produced 319 163 m14 rifles for the united states military . citation needed dean wooldridge retired in january 1962 13 to become a professor at california institute of technology . 2 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 computer monitors . thompson ramo wooldridge officially became trw inc. in july 1965 . 13 free of anti competitive restrictions except regarding icbm hardware stl was renamed trw systems group also in july 1965 . 13 the credit data group was formed in 1970 13 to compete with dun & bradstreet 2 and esl was acquired in 1978 13 specializing in technical strategic reconnaissance . trw information systems and services division credit data was spun off in 1996 to form experian . 16 trw acquired lucasvarity in 1999 then sold lucas diesel systems to delphi automotive and lucas aerospace then called trw aeronautical systems to goodrich corporation . 17 the company was 57 3 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 . 2 at approximately 7 p.m. on february 3 1986 the large trw plant in harrisburg pennsylvania burned to the ground in an eight alarm fire . 18 the plant stored large amounts of dangerous chemicals and people in the local area were urged to stay indoors . the damage was estimated to be greater than 10 million and it was the most serious fire in harrisburg history at the time . 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 7.8 billion was accepted . soon afterward the automotive assets of lucasvarity and trw s own automotive group were sold to the blackstone group as trw automotive . 19 much of trw s lyndhurst campus is now home to the lifestyle center legacy village . 20 bill gates the founder of microsoft says that he got his first big break when only 15 debugging energy grid control software for trw . it was kind of scary gates said realizing the things the program was going to help operate . this thing needs to work . 21 aerospace edit 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 . 22 space exploration edit 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 . 23 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 . 24 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 . 25 as nasa s first all atomic powered spacecraft 26 these used plutonium 238 units developed by teledyne isotopes . 27 pioneer 10 carried 11 instruments and pioneer 11 carried 12 for investigating jupiter and saturn respectively . 28 data was transmitted back to earth at 8 watts 128 byte s at jupiter 29 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 . 30 trw systems group designed and built the instrument package which performed the martian biological experiments 31 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 edit 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 s great observatories program chandra x ray observatory is the third of nasa s great observatories the teams developing the following observatories continued their work as part of northrop grumman aerospace systems sim lite space telescope which would have searched for earth sized planets in the habitable zones around nearby stars project cancelled james webb space telescope 32 which will be the successor to the hubble space telescope satellites edit 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 . 33 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 . 34 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