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Congress

Congressional Concerns Over Use of Russian Engines

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 30, 2014
Filed under ,

Lawmakers seek end to U.S. reliance on Russian rocket engine, Reuters
“U.S. reliance on Russian engines has been a long-time concern for lawmakers, but those worries have been heightened by Russian actions Washington believes are destabilizing Ukraine. Senators also raised concerns about U.S. dependence on Russian rocket engines at a hearing Wednesday and said they would press for work on an alternate engine. Chief Pentagon arms buyer Frank Kendall told the Senate Armed Services Committee the United States has a license to build the Russian engines itself and could do that if necessary. But he said it would require some technical work first and that the license only goes through about 2022.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

11 responses to “Congressional Concerns Over Use of Russian Engines”

  1. Denniswingo says:
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    It’s not like they have not had TWO DECADES to deal with this.

  2. nasa817 says:
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    And they aren’t concerned with the fact that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying Soyuz’s for rides to and emergency return from ISS?

    • hikingmike says:
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      Seems like they are more concerned with the dependency.
      DoD doesn’t use ISS. Amirite?

  3. Antilope7724 says:
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    Господа, начните двигателей! (Gentlemen, start your engines!)

  4. Jonna31 says:
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    It’s like Lawmakers responsible for oversight of spaceflight can’t be bothered to inform themselves. Good heavens.

    First, ATK and Orbital are merging. They are planning a Solid-state first stage replacement for the Antares. This was announced three days ago. That means Antares will no longer use the Russian sourced NK-33. Will it go forward? Almost certainly. Why merge with ATK otherwise? so that’s one Russian engine down.

    Second, with ULA… this is rather simple. Keep the Delta IV and kill the Atlas V. Really. We don’t need it. SpaceX, which apparently will have to fly a crew to Mars, cure a serious disease in transit, then balance the federal budget in suitu, before it gets any recognition, has a best-in-class, inexpensive, very modern, liquid engine. Today. It flies. This plan amounts to a $220 million subsidy for an obsolete rocket that fills no niche in a world of Falcon, Delta IV and SLS variants. Every size… pretty much every price point, is covered.

    So when it’s said ” a liquid rocket engine that would be made available to all U.S. space launch providers”, there is only one that would use it.

    This terrible idea just needs to be nipped in the bud. The solution to the RD-180 concern is to just rid ourselves of a launch system whose time has come and gone.

    • dogstar29 says:
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      Delta IV production could be ramped up but that also would take time and money. Because the Delta does not have an MLP it must be integrated with the payload on the pad and cannot be “rolled back”, so a second pad would probably be needed. Although Boeing has offered to reactivate Cx-37B this would also take time and money.

  5. DTARS says:
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    Didn’t someone say in another thread that NASA was doing a study on methane engines and they have been working on it for over a decade?

    Write us a check. We are working on it. We will get back to you.

  6. hikingmike says:
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    authorizes Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to spend $220 million to begin
    developing a liquid rocket engine that would be made available to all
    U.S. space launch providers

    Does that mean that NASA is going to make this engine and sell it to ULA and others? yuk yuk yuk

    Actually this authorizes a competition to build a new engine. I’m interested to know how this competition will work. Will they get bids and proposals and pick one, or will they have parallel development efforts with prototype and test articles like the YF-22/23 competition?

    • Terry Stetler says:
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      The language of the proposed legislation calls for an open competition. This makes SpaceX’s May 17th ISDC presentation all the more interesting.

      SUBJECT: the Raptor 1mlbf metane engine. Full Flow Staged Combustion. Component tests start this month at Stennis.

      • hikingmike says:
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        Yes, I would like to know what the competition will entail. Will it be actual rocket engines competing?

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Or could SpaceX say ‘hey! guys? wanna buy an engine?”