USAF Admits The Obvious on RD-180 Engines
Air Force Releases Rocket Propulsion System Prototypes RFP
“Today the Space and Missile Systems Center released a formal solicitation seeking proposals for shared public-private investments in rocket propulsion system prototypes. This solicitation is part of a comprehensive Air Force plan to transition off the Russian supplied RD-180 propulsion system used on the Atlas V rocket by investing in industry launch solutions with the ultimate goal to competitively procure launch services in a robust domestic launch market.”
Breaking The RD-180 Addiction, earlier post
Kind of pointless RFP. Of the three large liquid rocket manufactures in the US. Only Aerojet Rocketdybe is interested in a public-private partnership deal for their powerpoint AR-1 ORSC (oxygen rich stage combustion) cycle engine for which there is no customers. SpaceX will only use their in house engines. ULA seems to be committed to the Blue BE-4 engine for their Next Generation Launch System (aka Vulcan). The idea that either Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos is willing to shared their shiny toys is amusing.
With ULA’s board only providing quarterly funding for Vulcan (according to Boeing in a Space News article) it may not be a certainty either. Long term this market may come down to SpaceX vs Blue Origin’s own launcher.
It sounds more like the Air Force is hoping to get a few new launch vehicles, rather than just making new engines for old ones.
The RFP is likely required by law.
Still pointless, IMO.
“”The end goal of our strategy is to have two or more domestic, commercially viable launch providers that also meet national security space requirements,” said Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves, the Air Force’s Program Executive Officer for Space and the Commander of SMC. “This is essential in order to solidify U.S. assured access to space, transition the EELV program away from strategic foreign reliance, and support the U.S. launch industry’s commercial viability in the global market.””
That is great news, they must be commercially viable, that will be the final nail. If ULA doesn’t bring something globally competitive to the table they are out.
Except “commercially viable” is at odds with government hand-outs, which is how I interpret “shared public-private investments in rocket propulsion system prototypes”.
I see it more as like a COTS competition just to get more players into the field?
Perhaps, but I’m not convinced this is necessary.
What was your take on the threshold for “commercially viable”?
(1) The provider’s launch business can survive without any government sales?,
(2) The provider can get their launch costs down to commercial base rates – say in the neighborhood of $60-$70 million for medium payloads to LEO?
1 implies 2, yes? A commercially-viable launch provider will not be wholly dependent upon gov’t contracts and subsidies for its work. By having an active presence in the commercial non-gov’t launch market, their prices will, of necessity, be at a lower level than what the US gov’t has been paying for rides from ULA.
I believe the Airforce is saying goodbye to the 1 billion a year assured access payments and if you can not make it without a government launch to stay in business then you will have to close your doors.
Looks like they are saying your main business should be commercial and if a government launch comes along and you are certified you can bid for it but do not count on government launches as your sole business case.
If you can not make commercial sales you are to expensive for the government?
I don’t believe that ULA has ever been seriously interested in pursuing the commercial launch market. If I count correctly, Atlas V has had eight commercial payloads over its lifetime while Delta IV has had one. On top of that, there have been zero commercial launches by either vehicle in recent years, which seems to indicate that Atlas V and Delta IV are both failures in the commercial launch market.
For comparison, SpaceX has already had eight commercial launches for Falcon 9. Very soon, SpaceX will surpass ULA in number of commercial launches while ULA scrambles to keep the US Government business that keeps its doors open.
As usual, the US govt. has the reaction time of a dead snail. This is several years overdue.
I don’t understand why this is overdue at all. ULA has had several years to look into RD-180 replacements and has identified the Blue Origin BE-4 engine for use their Next Generation Launch System (aka Vulcan, aka Atlas VI). Meanwhile, Aerojet Rocketdyne has been looking for a US Government handout to develop an RD-180 replacement. Asking for handouts in today’s world makes no sense to me anymore.
If both SpaceX and Blue Origin can develop engines without overt government handouts, why can’t Aerojet Rocketdyne? Why can’t they make a business case for developing a new engine and seek out venture capital to fund it? No business case, no venture capital, no rocket engine, no government handouts.
Build an engine nobody wants (unless the BE-4 is a failure). Of course Aero/Rocket is seeking the rights to the Atlas V. What better way to fund engine development if you get the LV?
It is overdue because ULA didn’t want to spend time or money on changing anything or even looking at changing anything. Only when it became clear that it was unavoidable and couldn’t be either bought off or scared away by FUD did they gird their metaphorical loins and set about the task.
Of course, this meant that they started about 3-5 years too late.
Oh well!
I thought that any engine ULA developed would have made for a more expensive engine than the RD-180. Before Russia became a risky supplier, how could you justify or defend spending billions of dollars?
I justify it on the basis that ANY overseas supplier of national security-critical hardware is automatically a threat to national security. Events in the USA’s relationship with Russia prove this. No-one foresaw this re-chill in relations; such things rarely are foreseen far enough in advance to be useful so relying on the import rather than license production of RD-180 in the US was always a great gamble.
There would be never a time that I would have not considered them an unacceptable supplier.
As back in 2006 the RAND corp noted:
The use of the Russian-manufactured RD-180 engine in the Atlas V common core is a
major policy issue that must be addressed in the near term. Current and past space policies
have prohibited dependence on a foreign-made major critical component.
Or back in 1997 from the USDOT/FAA
Lockheed Martin also plans to use a new
rocket engine, the NPO Energomash RD-
180, for its EELV. … In order to meet
national security requirements this engine
will be built by Pratt & Whitney in the
United States.
Just pulling for the little company, I hope that TGV Rockets submits. They have a 30,000lb. thrust deep throttle kerosene engine, which nobody uses. Tested in 2007. A graph shows a nice stable run at full power and at 10%. Only weighs 200lb. 100 starts. They only have 30 employees. 1.5m$ in funds. No billionaire start up. Credit cards were used. They sub-contract work. They have a lot of computing power, so they might be able to make a large engine. They seem to be able to do it, I hope they try. They also have TPS. I hope that USAF does a Web search for rocket engine makers and contact them to make sure they get the RFP and not just post it. Sounds like a better idea to me.
After reading this through, this is one weird RFP. For one, the dollar amounts available ($150M) are spelled out, whereby usually that is not, even if widely known. It has it’s usual oddities though, such as allowing IR&D to be used as cost share, which essentially allows another part of the Air Force to team up and favor certain proposers.
A new oddity is the requirement “The Offeror shall provide a signed letter acknowledging understanding of the FY15 NDAA Section 1604 (E) requirement (see section 1.1) that the proposed RPS will be available for purchase by all space launch providers of the United States.” This won’t have any bite though, as there is no recurring price goal being set for Step 4, the launch service contracts. That last step’s where it’s always been challenging, especially with RFP’s that have such an engineering mind-set instead of an investor mind-set.
Interesting who would purchase it anyway. SpaceX has a mature engine that between the F9 and soon-to-fly FH handles any and all EELV payloads, and ULA building a new EELV around the B.O. BE-4.
The only user I can see is Aerojet if they can get rights to the atlas V which ULA has so-far nixed.
F1, designed, made and flight tested in the USA.