Beal Aerospace Technologies

A Dallas-based company, formed in 1997 by industrialist Andrew Beal, to develop a completely private medium- to heavy-lift rocket to launch commercial satellites. It went out of business in October 2000 but not before it had tested its BA-810 engine – the second largest liquid-propellant rocket engine ever built in the United States, surpassed only by the F-1 used on the Saturn V. The BA-810 would have boosted the second stage of Beal's planned three-stage BA-2 launch vehicle, capable of placing satellites of up to 6,000 kg into GTO (geostationary transfer orbit). The BA-2 would have been 64.6 m tall and 6.2 m in diameter, and weighed about 970 tons at liftoff.

Andrew Beal claimed that private companies such as his could not compete with Lockheed Martin's Atlas V and Boeing's Delta 4 which received government-funding from programs such as the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program and NASA's Space Launch Initiative (SLI).

Related category

• AEROSPACE AND RELATED COMPANIES

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