RD-180 Engines

Russia decided to cease deliveries of rocket engines to the United States in response to a new wave of Western sanctions related to the Ukraine conflict, state space corporation Roscosmos said 03 March 2022. "Such deliveries have been quite active since the mid-1990s, including the RD-180 engine that powered the Atlas-V rocket," Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin told a Russian TV program. He asked the United States to "fly on their brooms."

After Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014, pressure mounted in Congress to more quickly wean U.S. satellite launches from the engines, known as RD-180s. The United States is to officially cease using the RD-180 in 2022 -- slicing revenues for the manufacturer, NPO Energomash, which is now part of the Roskosmos conglomerate.

The RD-180 was developed by NPO Energomash in the 1990s, based on an older Soviet model, RD-170. Since the early-2000s, the Colorado-based United Launch Alliance (ULA), jointly run by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has been using the engine to power the first stages of its Atlas carrier rockets, including Atlas V.

The RD-180 engine, the primary booster in all Atlas V launch vehicles, is supplied by NPO Energomash, a Russian company largely owned by the Russian government. The RD-180 operates on a staged combustion cycle using liquid oxygen (LO2, the oxidizer) and Rocket Propellant 1 (RP-1) propellants. Lockheed Martin chose the RD-180 engine for its Atlas V launch vehicle because of its proven track record of success (based on the flight history of its predecessor engine), performance, and lower cost. The U.S. government was actively pursuing space cooperation with Russia in the 1990s and encouraged private-sector cooperation with Russia and other former Soviet Union states because of proliferation concerns.

The RD-180 engine has performed extremely well for some of America’s most sensitive national security satellites, such as those used for missile warning and protected communications. Moreover, the manufacture process of the RD-180 is one that cannot be easily replicated. In addition, the most effective way to design a launch capability is to design all components in coordination to optimize capabilities needed to meet mission requirements. In other words, replacing the RD-180 could require the development of a new launch vehicle and potentially new launch infrastructure.

American aerospace company Blue Origin has tested the Blue Engine 4 (BE-4) next-generation rocket engine, planned to replace the RD-180 engine in future American space launches. Blue Origin has been working on the BE-4 engine for the last seven years. A fully assembled BE-4 engine was unveiled in March 2017. In October 2016, Blue Origin’s founder Jeff Bezos announced that the company had successfully conducted the first firing test of the new engine. The BE-4 engine is planned to power the Vulcan rocket which is being built by the United Launch Alliance (ULA). The Vulcan is planned to replace the Atlas V rocket, which relies on the RD-180 engine. It is also expected that the new engine will be used to propel the New Glenn heavy rocket, which is also being developed by Blue Origin.

Maintaining a stockpile of at least two years’ supply of RD-180 engines has been a risk-mitigation strategy since the beginning of the program. The stockpile provides a hedge against short-term supply interruptions. In the event of a supply interruption that lasts longer than two years, the Air Force would need to move some Atlas V satellites onto Delta IVs and increase production of Delta IV launch vehicles while an alternative engine for the Atlas V is being developed. The development cost of an alternative engine can be expected to be on the order of $1 billion and could take about six years. Air Force contingency plans would call for Atlas V operations to gradually ramp down and for Delta IV operations to ramp up to support the satellites originally intended to launch on Atlas Vs until a new entrant launch vehicle or a re-engined Atlas V becomes available.

In 1997, Florida-based Pratt & Whitney and NPO Energomash of Russia established the RD AMROSS LLC joint venture to produce the Russian RD-180 engine for the American market. Having partnered to sell other engine models, Pratt & Whitney and Energomash came together again to attempt to meet Lockheed Martin’s need for a new engine for its Atlas 3 and 5 vehicles with the RD-180 engine, then under development. Lockheed Martin selected the RD-180 as the first stage engine for its new Atlas models. Government policy, however, required that Lockheed Martin demonstrate the ability to manufacture RD-180s in the United States in order to avoid dependence on Russia to launch national security payloads.

Therefore, under the RD AMROSS partnership, Energomash would produce 101 RD-180 engines for the Atlas 3 and commercial launches on Atlas 5 at its Khimky plant in Russia, while Pratt & Whitney would build some two dozen more RD-180s in Florida to launch government payloads. Pratt & Whitney also contributed $25 million to Energomash for upgrades at the Khimky plant. The two companies are 50-50 partners in the joint venture.

Production of RD-180 in the United States was expected to begin in 2005, but technology control issues and changes in Lockheed Martin’s production plans pushed back the start of domestic production to 2008 at the earliest.

On June 14, 2013, GenCorp Inc. (the “Company”) filed a Current Report on Form 8-K reporting the completion of the acquisition of substantially all of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne division (“Rocketdyne”) from United Technologies Corporation (“UTC”).

In 2014, in response to Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, Congress imposed tough sanctions against Russia, especially against Putin’s cronies and their corrupt, business empire. As part of that effort, Congress passed the FY15 NDAA, which restricted the Air Force from using Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines for national security space launches—engines that are manufactured by NPO Energomash, a Russian company that has been owned or controlled by some of Putin’s top cronies. An investigation by Reuters raised serious questions about the businesses and shell companies that facilitate the purchase of RD-180 Russian-made rocket engines, and exposed the role senior Russian politicians and close friends of Vladimir Putin play in the Energomash management.

Since the passage of the FY15 NDAA, Russia continued to destabilize Ukraine, send advanced weapons to Iran, violate the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Force Treaty, and intervene militarily in Syria on behalf of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. As a result, Congress acted again, passing the FY16 NDAA, which limited the use of RD-180 engines to a total of nine.

The FY16 NDAA, including its provision limiting the use of Russian rocket engines, was debated for months and passed the Senate not once, but twice. At no time did any senator come to the Senate floor to make the case for buying more Russian rocket engines. No senator introduced an amendment on the floor to lift the restriction on buying more Russian rocket engines. To the contrary, the Senate and the full Congress voted, overwhelmingly and repeatedly, to maintain this restriction.

The FY 2015 and FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA) included restrictions imposed by Congress on rocket engines manufactured in the Russian Federation. The NDAA provisions effectively limited the number of Russian RD-180 rocket engines that can be used in EELV space launches. The Secretary of Defense can waive the prohibition on awarding or renewing contracts for EELV space launches using rocket engines designed or manufactured in the Russian Federation if necessary for national security interests and launch services could not be obtained at a fair and reasonable price without the use of rocket engines designed or manufactured in the Russian Federation. The NDAA provisions except from the prohibition the placement of orders or exercise of options under contract FA8811-13-C-003 awarded December 18, 2013; contracts awarded for space launch that use not more than five rocket engines designed or manufactured in the Russian Federation that prior to February 1, 2014, were fully paid for by the contractor or covered by a legal commitment of the contractor to fully pay; contracts not covered that include the use of not more than 4 additional rocket engines designed or manufactured in the Russian Federation.

Yet, when the 2000-page omnibus appropriations bill was released shortly before consideration by Congress, buried within it was a policy provision that would effectively allow unlimited purchases and use of Russian rocket engines. Provision of the Fiscal Year 2016 Omnibus Appropriations Bill effectively allowed the unlimited purchase and use of Russian rocket engines manufactured by a Russian company with close ties to the regime of Vladimir Putin for U.S. national security space launches. The omnibus provision, which was airdropped into the bill by Senate appropriators in secret with no debate, undermined a measure in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (NDAA) that reasonably restricted the purchase of RD-180 rocket engines for military space launches by 2019, effectively rewarding Vladimir Putin and his cronies with a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars.

“It is morally outrageous and strategically foolish to ask American taxpayers to subsidize Russia’s military industrial base when Vladimir Putin occupies Crimea and destabilizes Ukraine, menaces our NATO allies in Europe, violates the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, sends weapons to Iran, and bombs U.S.-backed forces in Syria to prop-up the murderous regime of Bashar Assad,” Senator John McCain said 27 January 2016. “This legislation is vital to ensuring the United States does not depend on Vladimir Putin’s regime for assured access to space.”

“Securing access to space is a national security priority and essential to leading in a 21st century economy,” said McCarthy. “The ever-expanding access to the final frontier is fueled by technology, research, and development. Our policies should facilitate a competitive environment that provides the incentive to scale each component required to access space. This was achieved in the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act that was signed into law. But in a last minute maneuver, a provision was tucked into an unrelated spending bill that provides an indefinite lifeline to Russian rocket engines to power American space launches. Placing such a critical aspect of our future in the hands of a country that names the United States as a threat is not only foolish, it undermines the ingenuity happening across the country.”

In 2018 it was reported that the RD-180s would continue to be used until at least 2024, and possibly until 2028. In late July 2018, Igor Arbuzov, the head of Russia's major rocket engine manufacturer JSC NPO Energomash, said his company had signed a new agreement with the United Launch Alliance on the delivery of six RD-180 rocket engines for Atlas V rockets in 2020.

On 08 August 2018, in response to Washington's new sanctions against Moscow, senior Senate lawmaker Sergei Ryabukhin warned that Russia's response to sanctions might include cutting off the sale of the RD-180 rocket. "We have something to retaliate with, if the president decides to do so and there is the political will," the senator said, pointing to the engines' dual-use status, i.e. their use to put both civilian and military satellites into orbit.

The United States is working hard to halt its dependence on Russia’s RD-180 rocket engines, Jim Bridenstine, the administrator of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said 11 Augsut 2018. Earlier in August, the US administration announced new sanctions against Russia in response to Moscow's alleged use of chemical weapons against Russian ex-intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in the UK city of Salisbury in March. "The United States of America is working really hard to not be dependent on the RD-180 engines. NASA is unique from the rest of the federal government in a sense that when relations get rough between countries, when they are not so good, NASA is able to maintain that relationship," Bridenstine said in an interview with the C-SPAN broadcaster.

Acording to Politico, ULA said that the Atlas V “continues to be very popular in both the civil and commercial markets and RD-180 engines will be used for those missions.” But it also looked ahead. “Now is the right time to develop an American engine for Vulcan Centaur, ULA's future launch vehicle,” it said in a statement. “That is why we have been working for two years with both Blue Origin to develop its BE-4 engine and Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop its AR-1 engine.”

On 22 December 2018 SpaceX founder Elon Musk praised the Russian-built RD-180 rocket engine for looking awesome but said his bitter rivals Lockheed and Boeing ought to be ashamed of using it during their launches. The eccentric tech billionaire said a few nice words about the RD-180 on Twitter, while mocking his competitors at the same time. “It’s embarrassing that Boeing and Lockheed need to use a Russian engine on Atlas,” the rocket-maker wrote “but that engine design is brilliant.”