Russia ships three more engines to U.S. for ULA’s rockets
Russia announced yesterday that it has delivered three more RD-180 engines to ULA for use in its Atlas 5 rocket.
The article notes that this contract, as well as the contract with Northrop Grumman to make RD-181 engines for the Antares rocket, both end in December 2019. While ULA has said it plans to replace the Russia engine with Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine (still under development), it is not clear what Northrop Grumman will do.
In both cases, Russia has delivered enough engines to cover launches for the next few years. This will give Blue Origin time to complete development of the BE-4. As for Antares, the lack of its Russian engine, combined with its inability to obtain any customers other than NASA, could spell the end of that rocket once Northrop Grumman has used up its engine stockpile.
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Russia announced yesterday that it has delivered three more RD-180 engines to ULA for use in its Atlas 5 rocket.
The article notes that this contract, as well as the contract with Northrop Grumman to make RD-181 engines for the Antares rocket, both end in December 2019. While ULA has said it plans to replace the Russia engine with Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine (still under development), it is not clear what Northrop Grumman will do.
In both cases, Russia has delivered enough engines to cover launches for the next few years. This will give Blue Origin time to complete development of the BE-4. As for Antares, the lack of its Russian engine, combined with its inability to obtain any customers other than NASA, could spell the end of that rocket once Northrop Grumman has used up its engine stockpile.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
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“its inability to obtain any customers other than NASA”
I dont think it was ever intended too. Sure, they wouldn’t turn someone away but that project was to compete for a specific NASA contract. I think you would find sourcing of new engines to coincide with their confidence in getting contract renewals from NASA.
I didn’t realize NGIS’s engine contract for Antares ran out this year. If NGIS is sitting on an inventory of a couple dozen or so RD-191’s that could get them through 2024-25 when the next CRS contract is due to be let – assuming ISS isn’t in the process of being decommissioned by then. If ISS is still a thing until 2030, the Firefly Beta, which is to have roughly Antares-level performance, be reusable and built around AJR’s AR-1 engine, could pose serious competition. But if NGIS can’t get more engines for Antares, it may well have sold Cygnus to Firefly in the meantime and exited both the launch and ISS resupply businesses.
The only alternative would seem to be also going with AJR’s AR-1. But doing a straight-up substitution would make Antares a two AR-1 rocket vs. the single-AR-1 Beta so costs will be higher even in the absence of any other complication – such as the very real possibility AJR will be owned by Noosphere Ventures a year or two down the road just as Firefly is owned by NV now.