Has Aerojet Rocketdyne lost engine race with Blue Origin?
Aerojet Rocketdyne financial documents suggest that it has given up the bidding competition with Blue Origin to supply a rocket engine for ULA’s Vulcan rocket.
The latest financial release from aerospace manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne reveals that the company spent none of its own money on development of the AR1 rocket engine this spring. Moreover, the quarterly 10-Q filing that covers financial data through June 30, 2018 indicates that Aerojet may permanently stop funding the engine with its own money altogether—a sign the company has no immediate customers.
Although Aerojet will continue to receive some funding from the US military through next year to develop its large, new rocket engine, this money won’t be enough to bring it to completion. Instead of having a flight-ready engine for use by the end of 2019, the filing indicates that Aerojet now intends to have just a single prototype completed within the time frame.
Essentially this means ULA will have no choice but to pick Blue Origin’s engine, unless the Air Force pulls its weight and demands it take Aerojet rocketdyne, even if that means a significant delay before Vulcan can launch.
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Aerojet Rocketdyne financial documents suggest that it has given up the bidding competition with Blue Origin to supply a rocket engine for ULA’s Vulcan rocket.
The latest financial release from aerospace manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne reveals that the company spent none of its own money on development of the AR1 rocket engine this spring. Moreover, the quarterly 10-Q filing that covers financial data through June 30, 2018 indicates that Aerojet may permanently stop funding the engine with its own money altogether—a sign the company has no immediate customers.
Although Aerojet will continue to receive some funding from the US military through next year to develop its large, new rocket engine, this money won’t be enough to bring it to completion. Instead of having a flight-ready engine for use by the end of 2019, the filing indicates that Aerojet now intends to have just a single prototype completed within the time frame.
Essentially this means ULA will have no choice but to pick Blue Origin’s engine, unless the Air Force pulls its weight and demands it take Aerojet rocketdyne, even if that means a significant delay before Vulcan can launch.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Remember also, that if the proposed Space Development Agency takes over technical development as a precursor of part of the new Space Force, then the Air Force and its political connections with the patron of AJR will be less capable at keeping AR-1 alive. Even the Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee will require time to build strings into an entirely new hierarchy. Also, the singular point remains that AR-1 remains a KeroLOX engine. To use it ,ULA has to completely redesign Vulcan from its 5.4m diameter.
Right now, for Senator Shelby to keep AR-1 alive, he will have to find another contractor to use more expensive AR-1 engines on a newly designed launcher, build contacts inside the new Space Development Agency to fund it with exclusively government funds. Then he’d have to keep both the new contractor and the SDA on board for however long he is in office. That’s a tall order even for his level of power in the Senate. Worst case would be that Boeing and LockMart decide to give up building launchers all together and just keep their more lucrative satellite-building businesses, which are outside Alabama, and would leave ULA with nothing more than a date till the last RD-180 is flown, and then fold their tent, because BoeingSS&D and LockMart just keep taking all ULA’s profits. That means Alabama doesn’t even get Blue Origin’s plant in Alabama, because there’s no Vulcan program to order engines from it.
Minor nit:
> Also, the singular point remains that AR-1 remains a KeroLOX engine. To use it ,ULA has to completely redesign Vulcan from its 5.4m diameter.
That’s what I would have expected as well, but Tory Bruno says otherwise, that they’d keep the same diameter, and almost the same length, as while the RP-1 is slightly more dense, methane allows for a common bulkhead between tanks.
“Worst case would be that Boeing and LockMart decide to give up building launchers all together and just keep their more lucrative satellite-building businesses, which are outside Alabama, and would leave ULA with nothing more than a date till the last RD-180 is flown, and then fold their tent, because BoeingSS&D and LockMart just keep taking all ULA’s profits.”
Unfortunately, this is likely what is going to happen.
It’s telling that ULA has been forced to hold off on announcing the engine. ULA’s stakeholders clearly have been holding off until they see the new DoD launch awards. Their interest in ULA has only been as a pipeline for easy, non-competitive government payloads. With those days at an end, so is their interest in sustaining ULA.
Or it could be that Vulcan gets a green light, but neither it nor ULA stick around, once Blue Origin is fully in the game. Odds are that by the late 2020’s, virtually all medium and heavy lift launches in the United States will be handled by SpaceX and Blue Origin.