Kearfott is a defense equipment manufacturer founded in 1918 in New Jersey, United States. It is based in Woodland Park. Today the electronics division is part of

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Aerospace industry, aerospace, military technology, military and information security company, based in London. It is the largest manufacturer in Britain as of 2017. It is ...

, while the remaining Kearfott Guidance & Navigation division is a subsidiary of the

Astronautics Corporation of America Astronautics Corporation of America (ACA) was established in 1959 and is a US supplier, designer, and manufacturer of avionics equipment to airlines, governments, commercial and defense aircraft manufacturers, and other avionics systems integrator ...

. It also has locations in Black Mountain, North Carolina and Matamoros, Mexico.

History

Kearfott Corporation was founded in 1918 by William Dunham Kearfott. It became the Kearfott Division of the General Precision Equipment Corporation in 1955 and then, in 1968, the Kearfott Division of Singer Business Corporation. In 1987 Singer split Kearfott; the Kearfott Guidance & Navigation division was sold to the

in 1988, and the Electronic Systems Division was purchased by

Plessey The Plessey Company plc was a British electronics, defence and telecommunications company. It originated in 1917, growing and diversifying into electronics. It expanded after World War II by acquisition of companies and formed overseas compani ...

. In 1990 GEC-Marconi bought Plessey and renamed the unit in

Wayne, New Jersey Wayne is a Township (New Jersey), township in Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Home to William Paterson University and located less than from Midtown Manhattan, the township is a bedroom suburb of New ...

GEC-Marconi Electronic Systems. Kearfott Guidance & Navigation Corporation officially changed its name to Kearfott Corporation effective June 1, 2008, reflecting the fact that the scope of the company's business was not limited to guidance and navigation products.

Projects

Among the many vehicles and devices that contain a Kearfott built Inertial Navigation Unit (INU), is the Northrop-built Global Hawk. The KN-4072 and the KN-4074 are the preferred MRLG (Monolithic Ring Laser Gyro) units for Northrop's Global Hawk. The KN-4072a and the KN-4074 are based upon the KN-4071 design series, with a few key differences, most noticeably their enclosures and interfaces. Kearfott built the

inertial navigation system An inertial navigation system (INS; also inertial guidance system, inertial instrument) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors (gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning th ...

for the

Pershing II The Pershing II Weapon System was a solid-fueled two-stage medium-range ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the Pershing 1a Field Artillery Missile System as the United States Army's primary nuclear-capable thea ...

missile and for the Space Shuttle. Kearfott integrating gyroscopes (P/N C702519018-4) were used in the rate gyros for the Apollo Telescope Mount / Orbital Workshop (aka Skylab).

References

External links

*
www.astronautics.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kearfott Guidance and Navigation Technology companies established in 1918 Companies based in Passaic County, New Jersey Companies based in North Carolina 1918 establishments in New Jersey