Rocket Firm Changes Course After Launch Pad Blast : Space: A faulty fuel valve caused AMROC’s first rocket to burn on the launch pad. The company now just wants to sell rocket engines in a business in which reliability is everything.

American Rocket Co., a Camarillo concern whose first attempt to launch a commercial rocket failed when the 58-foot-tall craft burst into flames on the launch pad Oct. 5, has put off plans for a new rocket launch and will try instead to stay in business by selling rocket motors.

But AMROC will have to convince potential customers, from aerospace giants like McDonnell Douglas to small private launch companies, that its motors are reliable, which might not be easy after the launch failure.

“My gut feeling is they’re going to have to recreate the credibility of that design,” said one potential customer, former astronaut Donald K. (Deke) Slayton, who runs Space Services, a small Houston company that last year successfully launched a rocket made from an assortment of government missile parts.

In the private commercial rocket business, according to Slayton, “The most important thing we have to sell is reliability. You can’t afford to be perceived as not reliable.”

Since the rocket fire, AMROC has laid off about 50 of its 80 regular employees, said Paul Estey, AMROC’s president. AMROC also let go about 40 people it hired temporarily for the launch. Estey said the company has enough money on hand for a year of development work on the engines.

Last fall AMROC was intent on trying to jump into the new commercial rocket business. It spent $15 million to ready its first unmanned, suborbital launch attempt. But the launch attempt at Vandenberg Air Force Base never got off the ground. The rocket caught on fire, and its liquid oxygen tanks were punctured when the rocket toppled over.

After the space shuttle Challenger accident, the federal government opened the way for private, commercial rocket launches. Since then three major companies--McDonnell Douglas, Martin Marietta and General Dynamics--that have been building missiles for decades have lined up business to launch commercial satellites into space.

Meanwhile, a handful of smaller companies, such as AMROC and Space Services, have tried to develop their own rockets to launch smaller payloads into space, such as medical experiments or small satellites. In April, Orbital Sciences, based in Arlington, Va., plans to launch a rocket carried aloft by a B-52 bomber.

Last month Estey replaced interim AMROC president James Bennett, who took over the company after the death of AMROC founder George Koopman in an auto accident last July. Estey was AMROC’s vice president of engineering.

One reason AMROC is putting off another launch attempt is the high cost. Just renting a pad and tracking services on launch day last October cost AMROC $100,000. And Estey said the company believes it will have an easier time finding customers, such as the major rocket companies and its smaller rivals, to buy AMROC’s motors than it would have finding companies with payloads to put into space.

Estey said his company’s rocket failed due to a faulty liquid oxygen valve that led to the fire that consumed the rocket. “It’s a relatively easy problem to fix, and people realize that,” he said.

But AMROC has yet to complete any rocket motor sales.

The AMROC motor burns a combination of liquid oxygen and a solid fuel that is like tire rubber. It burns only when sprayed with the liquid oxygen from a separate tank. Because the rubber fuel doesn’t tend to burn by itself, the motors can be assembled and shipped without the extraordinary precautions that are necessary for some highly combustible fuels. Estey said the engines, made to order, could cost from several hundred thousand to several million dollars.

In addition to looking for sales to private rocket launch companies, AMROC also plans to bid on a contract to develop a hybrid engine for NASA. The space agency may eventually replace the solid-fuel boosters on the space shuttle with hybrid solid and liquid fuel motors. The NASA contract wouldn’t call for work until October, at the earliest, and could range in size from $3 million to $16 million, Estey said.

But for small concerns, the commercial rocket business is anything but stable. Last November, Slayton’s company suffered a failure in its second rocket launch. The rocket had to be blown up because the payload separated from the motor too early, due to a guidance system problem.

The failure hasn’t prevented Space Services from scheduling another launch in May. “But if we’d had a motor failure on that flight, then we would end up having to go back to the drawing board,” Slayton said.