Are New Russian Engines a Good Thing for an American Rocket?
Russia’s Izvestia newspaper reports @OrbitalSciences picked Energomash’s RD-193 engine as replacement for Antares’ AJ-26.
— Brian Berger (@Berger_SN) October 30, 2014
Russia’s Izvestia newspaper reports @OrbitalSciences picked Energomash’s RD-193 engine as replacement for Antares’ AJ-26.
— Brian Berger (@Berger_SN) October 30, 2014
This actually makes good internal sense (regardless of it being ill-advised in general).
As I pointed out in other threads, the Soyuz 2 “mini” used an NK-33 in its flight last december. It was a stop-gap until the RD-193 became available.
That implies it is almost plug’n’play swappable. Interestingly, tho, the engine was originally specced to be fixed or gimballed, I saw a reference that it is no longer for gimbal mounting. The NK-33 was mounted in gimbals, so maybe the RD-193 is able to be gimballed.
So, from their POV it is a good (but bad) decision.
That seems to be its purpose. To create a version of the RD-170 family to replace the NK-33.
RUFKM ?
We can only hope it a joke! Otherwise it’s WTF?
I suspected it wouldn’t be a solid rocket engine. Too many changes would be required. What makes business sense is something as close to plug-compatible as possible.
Also the RD-XXX series of engines has been remarkably successful.
For now, anyway. I’m starting to doubt Russia’s commitment to sparkle motion.
I suspected it would… considering the merger, but I’m ok with being wrong. 🙂
Remember RD just means Rocket Engine in Russian (acutally, Rocket Mover… but that’s usually too esoteric). I wouldn’t call it a “series” as much as a naming convention.
that got by the mediator ?
well it’s free enterprise at work. obviously i think you’d prefer US engines on US rockets, but maybe the supply of US engines is limited, commercially (or otherwise) restrained ? so it could have been no rocket (a smaller space business in the US) or a US rocket with a non-US engine.
would you have the same reservations about using a European engine ? (quite possibly)
Are you sure this isn’t from the Onion? 😉
Probably a great rocket engine. But if the U.S. or Europe upsets Putin too much, that new engine may not be available any longer or its price could really go up.
All I can say is at least they won’t be antiques…
Clarke (thinking back to Keith’s post with the photo) felt strongly that international trade relationships would ultimately doom the dumb things politicians do, the thinking being that businessmen would not put up with BS. A little optimistic, I suppose, but in general it makes sense except that market penetration must be both wide and deep. In other words, engines ain’t enough.
If this is true – and I’d be very careful giving much credence to anything I read in a Rusian paper – it makes a lot of sense. As others have discussed an all solid solution is a major change. Developing a brand new engine would take much longer. What is left? Borrowing some Merlins from SpaceX? Hoping Blue Origin’s supposed replacement for the RD-180 on Atlas will work?
The reality of it is that the U.S. does not have a Lox/RP engine ready to go other than the Merlin. You’d probably have to use 3 Merlins to get equivalent performance, so it is doable. However you run into 3 significant issues:
1) Do Orbital and/or SpaceX want to be cooperating at such a basic level?
2) Does SpaceX have the capacity to add even more engines to their production line given how many they need for Falcon
3) Would NASA go for having their redundant suppliers both using the same exact engine? A failure of one means a standown of the other.
How long did it take for SpaceX to design and build Merlin? Anyone know?
400,000lbs of thrust. I think large boost in performance. Ready to ship. Orbital might be the first to use though.
As I can see, americans finally understood, that trampoline is not a very good thing to be a rocket engine. 🙂
Greetings from Russia 😉