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Report: CRS Worried About Ongoing RD-180 Indecision

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 1, 2016
Filed under ,
Report: CRS Worried About Ongoing RD-180 Indecision

National Security Space Launch at a Crossroads, Congressional Research Service
“Transitioning away from the RD-180 to a domestic U.S. alternative would likely involve technical, program, and schedule risk. A combination of factors over the next several years, as a worst-case scenario, could leave the United States in a situation where some of its national security space payloads would not have a certified launcher available. Even with a smooth, on- schedule transition away from the RD-180 to an alternative engine or launch vehicle, the performance and reliability record achieved with the RD-180 to date would not likely be replicated until well beyond 2030 because the RD-180 has had 68 consecutive successful civil, commercial, and NSS launches since 2000.”
Previous RD-180 posts

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9 responses to “Report: CRS Worried About Ongoing RD-180 Indecision”

  1. duheagle says:
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    One would think that something that styles itself the Congressional Research Service would be plenty used to seeing dithering going on as the competing greed-based agendas of various pols feint and wheel toward some kind of quasi-corrupt conclusion.

  2. Daniel Woodard says:
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    The CRS report is not particularly insightful but does remind us of some peculiar elements in the history of the EELV program. It correctly points out that there has never been any official suggestion by Russia or the RD-180 suppliers that the supply of engines would be interrupted due to political tensions. The report seems to suggest that letting ULA continue to import RD-180s until it has something better in hand would be less disruptive than a precipitous embargo by Congress.

    • duheagle says:
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      Then at least the CRS has a keen grasp of the obvious. That’s actually a compliment when it comes to government bureaucracies; there are plenty that don’t.

  3. Kevin Hoover says:
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    Can someone knowledgeable explain why it takes so many years to develop a new engine? It seems just preposterously long, but then I don’t know the difficult details.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      The proposed timeline for the BE-4/Vulcan seems pretty much in line with what we have seen with the Shuttle (RS-25), Falcon (Merlin and Raptor engines), Delta IV (RS-68), and Long March-7 (YF-100). One could say that it is a slow process to develop an engine because the components must operate under such extraordinary temperatures and stresses that development usually entails extensive testing with occasional failures and design changes.

      • fcrary says:
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        I’d actually blame it on interaction between parts and and high performance or low tolerance/margin. Even the simple ones can’t double the mass of a component to make sure it won’t fail in a way which takes down the whole system. That’s how you build car engines: Most will work (more or less) with a quarter to a half of the cylinders shot. Even the simpler rockets, like a Merlin, are not in that regime. That means testing, and testing of all the interactions between the components.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          I’ve wondered the same thing asked by Mr. Hoover (nice to see some new blood), and I would only ask in light of the responses: are we not in possession of the knowledge need to build a rocket engine by now? 2016– rockets have been flying for a century; and humungous rockets like Saturn since the 60’s.

          At what point to we just know how to do it?

          (and does anybody know the actual time line on Merlin or Raptor?)

          • fcrary says:
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            If you look at other, relatively similar things, such as airplanes, the time it takes to design a rocket engine isn’t too bad. Remember, we’ve been building airplanes for over a century and Boeing took six to eight years to develop the 787 (2003-2009 for first flight, 2011 for first commercial use.) On the other hand, there are aircraft designs which take much less time.

            If you mean building an rocket engine, that’s different. SpaceX is cranking out Merlins by the dozen. But if you mean putting together a new design and testing it, that’s more work and takes longer. I suspect, like airplanes, it depends on how novel the design is. On the other hand, minor changes and new versions aren’t so hard. The Merlin has gone through six versions since the 1A was first introduced.

            I suspect we’ll see shorter development times once people are happy with the state of the are. If the last generation just needs some tinkering to improve, that will be quick. As long as people aren’t satisfied with that and want more than incremental improvements, the new design work will be a slow process.