Aerojet Rocketdyne’s plant on De Soto Avenue in Canoga Park is a major aerospace complex that produces motors for missiles and rockets. The company’s rocket engines are used by NASA, and have powered every Air Force ICBM rocket ever fielded, including today’s Minuteman III. This site, one of three Aerojet Rocketdyne sites in the western San Fernando Valley, dates back to the late 1950s, when Atomics International, a division of North American Aviation, established its headquarters here. The company was developing nuclear power production primarily for applications in space. The second Aerojet Rocketdyne site is a few miles south on Canoga Avenue, and was the location of a much larger rocket plant. It was demolished a decade ago, but is still an empty lot, awaiting further remediation. The third site is the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, where rocket motors and nuclear reactors were tested. Aerojet Rocketdyne was bought by L3Harris in 2023.