Skip to main content

Billion-dollar deal: Russia to sell space rocket engines to US company



An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, January 5, 2014.(Reuters / Bill Ingalls)
51179



Russia’s design bureau NPO Energomash is to deliver 60 RD 181 engines for the Antares rocket first stage to American space technology manufacturer Orbital Sciences Corporation. The total cost of the deal is about $1 billion.

“We are committed to deliver 60 engines. Three options have been signed, each for 20 engines,” Vladimir Solntsev, executive director of Energomash, told the Izvestia newspaper. “There is a firm contract for 20 engines, which we have started fulfilling, as we are due to supply the first two engines next June.”

According to Solntsev, Russia’s government has already issued all the permits required for the deal. The contract envisages restrictions for the use of RD-181 engines in military programs as those rockets cannot be used for military goals.

Following an engine failure and subsequent explosion during the Antares launch in October, the company halted all launches, struggling to find a replacement. The reliability of the RD-181 and similar engines made it the best choice, Orbital’s vice president for space launch strategic development, Mark Pieczynski, told Aviation Week in December.




Reuters / Bill Ingalls



The engine was developed specially for Antares and it allows more cargo to be delivered to the International Space Station and to low orbits. Using new technologies and materials the engineers managed to increase the motive power to 186 tons.

The total cost of the deal is estimated at $1 billion. This sum includes not only the price of the engines but a set of services as well. Energomash will provide flight preparation, training, engines installation and its test operations.

According to Solntsev, the US would have to spend about $3 billion to develop its own engine for Antares and the process would take up to 10 years, without guarantee of success. That’s why Energomash plans to cooperate with Orbital Sciences Corporation for 15-20 years.



“I believe the contract is focused on cooperation over 15-25 years, as no one will regularly change engines on a rocket,”he said.

Energomash is Russia’s leading rocket engines producer. The company has cooperated with the Orbital Sciences Corporation since 1990, delivering RD 180 engines for Atlas rockets. Later, the AJ-26 engines, based on the Soviet NK 33, were used for Antares.

The Antares rockets are also used to launch Cygnus, OSC’s new automated cargo spacecraft, which is part of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.

Last April, the US halted cooperation with Russia in other spaсe programs apart from the International Space Station program. However, the sanctions do not apply to Energomash. Long-term cooperation in other programs is still under discussion, however.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why States Still Use Barrel Bombs

Smoke ascends after a Syrian military helicopter allegedly dropped a barrel bomb over the city of Daraya on Jan. 31.(FADI DIRANI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Barrel bombs are not especially effective weapons. They are often poorly constructed; they fail to detonate more often than other devices constructed for a similar purpose; and their lack of precision means they can have a disproportionate effect on civilian populations. However, combatants continue to use barrel bombs in conflicts, including in recent and ongoing conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and they are ideally suited to the requirements of resource-poor states. Analysis Barrel bombs are improvised devices that contain explosive filling and shrapnel packed into a container, often in a cylindrical shape such as a barrel. The devices continue to be dropped on towns all over Syria . Indeed, there have been several documented cases of their use in Iraq over the past months, and residents of the city of Mosul, which was re...
Post a Comment
Read more

Russia Looks East for New Oil Markets

Click to Enlarge In the final years of the Soviet Union, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began orienting his foreign policy toward Asia in response to a rising Japan. Putin has also piloted a much-touted pivot to Asia, coinciding with renewed U.S. interest in the area. A good expression of intent was Russia's hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2012 in Vladivostok, near Russia's borders with China and North Korea. Although its efforts in Asia have been limited by more direct interests in Russia's periphery and in Europe, Moscow recently has been able to look more to the east. Part of this renewed interest involves finding new export markets for Russian hydrocarbons. Russia's economy relies on energy exports, particularly crude oil and natural gas exported via pipeline to the West. However, Western Europe is diversifying its energy sources as new supplies come online out of a desire to reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies . This has ...
Post a Comment
Read more

LONDON POLICE INDIRECTLY ENCOURAGE CRIMINALS TO ATTACK RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC PROPERTY

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE A few days ago an unknown perpetrator trespassed on the territory of the Russian Trade Delegation in London, causing damage to the property and the vehicles belonging to the trade delegation , Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during the September 12 press briefing. The diplomat revealed the response by the London police was discouraging. Police told that the case does not have any prospects and is likely to be closed. This was made despite the fact that the British law enforcement was provided with video surveillance tapes and detailed information shedding light on the incident. By this byehavior, British law inforcements indirectly encourage criminals to continue attacks on Russian diplomatic property in the UK. Zakharova’s statement on “Trespassing on the Russian Trade Mission premises in London” ( source ): During our briefings, we have repeatedly discussed compliance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, sp...
1 comment
Read more