ULA denied RD-180 engine waiver

[fredinno]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/10/09/pentagon-denies-ula-waiver-on-russian-engines/

ULA has been denied RD-180 engine waiver for DOD Atlas Launches.

I don't think they will be able to retire Delta IV for DOD launches, but that would increase costs enormously. Vulcan truely is in a race against time now, it has to debut in 2019 to pick up the slack once Atlas doesn't have the engines for DOD launches anymore...

[rtxoff]

That's good news for SpaceX.

[K^2]

That's good news for everybody in the long run. Except some corrupt politicians in Russia, but that just makes it better for the rest of us.

[Streetwind]

I dunno, I always liked the engine. It's powerful, efficient, looks good and never failed. Shame to toss a good piece of technology out over petty political posturing.

[Scotius]

It's a vicious circle, my friend. Political posturing causes the Space Race, then political posturing hampers it. Which leads to more political posturing, finger pointing and blame laying.

[Jovus]

Amusing hypothetical:

"Here's a new engine for you to certify for use in fulfilling your contracts. Yes, it looks remarkably like an RD-180, but that's purely coincidence. You can see from the serial numbers and from this well-documented R&D process that we manufactured it ourselves. What's that? The R&D process looks very short? Well, yes, I agree it's usually longer, but our head engineer had the design come to him in a dream. It was almost like he had a prototype to work from."

[Kryten]

Amusing hypothetical:

"Here's a new engine for you to certify for use in fulfilling your contracts. Yes, it looks remarkably like an RD-180, but that's purely coincidence. You can see from the serial numbers and from this well-documented R&D process that we manufactured it ourselves. What's that? The R&D process looks very short? Well, yes, I agree it's usually longer, but our head engineer had the design come to him in a dream. It was almost like he had a prototype to work from."

ULA already have all the plans required for RD-180 production in the US, it was part of the contract agreement; it just couldn't be built economically because it's very labour intensive and US aerospace labour is much more expensive than Russian.

[fredinno]

That's good news for everybody in the long run. Except some corrupt politicians in Russia, but that just makes it better for the rest of us.

ULA might still suffer a from this for a while.

- - - Updated - - -

ULA already have all the plans required for RD-180 production in the US, it was part of the contract agreement; it just couldn't be built economically because it's very labour intensive and US aerospace labour is much more expensive than Russian.

No, they aren't allowed to use US-made RD-180s either because they were designed by Russia, as part of the DOD legislation. Else ULA wouldn't be going into a complete panic over this.

[Kryten]

No, they aren't allowed to use US-made RD-180s either because they were designed by Russia, as part of the DOD legislation. Else ULA wouldn't be going into a complete panic over this.

I know, but the idea was never viable in the first place. It was just a bit of sleight of hand to ease fears of this kind of thing when the deal was first announced.

[SomeGuy12]

No, they aren't allowed to use US-made RD-180s either because they were designed by Russia, as part of the DOD legislation. Else ULA wouldn't be going into a complete panic over this.

Now that's just politics. Relying on engines that have to be imported from a semi-hostile foreign country for crucial "national security" satellite launches is a bad idea. But if ULA has the rights to produce an indefinite number of the engines in the USA, and actually started manufacturing them, I don't see what the problem is.

[rtxoff]

Now that's just politics. Relying on engines that have to be imported from a semi-hostile foreign country for crucial "national security" satellite launches is a bad idea. But if ULA has the rights to produce an indefinite number of the engines in the USA, and actually started manufacturing them, I don't see what the problem is.

source?

[prophet_01]

At this point I doubt it's the better option to set up an entire new production line for this, especially if the costs per engine will likely increase a lot. They would also have to test it a couple of times to gurantee that their manufacturing works correctly. That would result in some heavy delays.

Looks more like ULA is going to lose at least a couple of contracts to the competiton. And it's not even set in stone that ULA will be selected for more contracts after fixing this. Why change back to the old launch provider if the new one is just as good?

[fredinno]

At this point I doubt it's the better option to set up an entire new production line for this, especially if the costs per engine will likely increase a lot. They would also have to test it a couple of times to gurantee that their manufacturing works correctly. That would result in some heavy delays.

Looks more like ULA is going to lose at least a couple of contracts to the competiton. And it's not even set in stone that ULA will be selected for more contracts after fixing this. Why change back to the old launch provider if the new one is just as good?

Presenting the DOD's two EELV booster requirement! It's also practically the only reason Delta IV is still flying! Since probably only SpaceX and ULA will be able to fill those EELV contracts (Blue Origin can't comllete their rocket fast enough probably, and Orbital's Cygnus is diqualifed due to its Russian Engine)

Why? I think its a handover from the Titan IV and Shuttle days, where they had a single launcher launching rockets only. That backfired immensely when the rockets failed, as it delayed satellite launches.

[fredinno]

source?

The license to RD-180s for use on Atlas expires in 2022. Fat chance it will be renewed due to politics.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2512/1

[Sidereus]

No, they aren't allowed to use US-made RD-180s either because they were designed by Russia, as part of the DOD legislation. Else ULA wouldn't be going into a complete panic over this.

Source? I don't see any indication that's the case. It looks like it was simply decided by ULA not to bother investing in having that capability in place because of the costs associated with it, and that bringing that capability online would simply take too long at this point.

I know a bit about these import bans due to my other hobbies, and they pretty much never ban production in the US, just importation from sanctioned countries. I don't see why it would be any different here.

ETA: That's essentially what the article you just posted says, too.

FTA:

The original deal to use the RD-180 on the Atlas V required Lockheed Martin to develop the capability to manufacture the engines in the United States as a backup should the Russian supply be disrupted. However, while RD AMROSS, the US-Russian joint venture established to procure RD-180 engines from Energomash for ULA, has a license to manufacture the engine in the US and much of the technical information, costs led industry and government to abandon those plans years ago.

“Just like everything else, though, it requires an investment. It’s a fairly sizable investment,†Bill Parsons, the president and CEO of RD AMROSS and a former director of the Kennedy Space Center, told Space News last November. “But they [Energomash] meet their contracts, they deliver on time and the price is a good price. You build that same engine in the U.S. and the price of that engine goes up.â€Â

“The bottom line is that the DOD didn’t invest, industry didn’t invest, the Congress didn’t make them, and it never happened,†said Michael Griffin, the former NASA administrator and current chairman and CEO of Schafer Corporation, during a meeting of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) on May 9 in Washington.

[...]

Since the report was not yet public, Griffin couldn’t share its results, but he did offer his own views on the situation, including his belief that developing a replacement of some kind of the RD-180 is not something that can be done quickly. “Anyone who has ever been out on a test stand, testing their own rocket engine, knows that this is, at best, a five- or six-year process to bring it to fruition,†he said of the development time. “And it really doesn’t matter whether you’re producing, or returning to production, an existing design like the RD-180 or building your own.â€Â

No politics, just shortsightedness on the part of ULA.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Sidereus

[fredinno]

Source? I don't see any indication that's the case. It looks like it was simply decided by ULA not to bother investing in having that capability in place because of the costs associated with it, and that bringing that capability online would simply take too long at this point.

I know a bit about these import bans due to my other hobbies, and they pretty much never ban production in the US, just importation from sanctioned countries. I don't see why it would be any different here.

ETA: That's essentially what the article you just posted says, too.

FTA:

No politics, just shortsightedness on the part of ULA.

That was a mistake on my side.

When I was trying to find the article, I came across somewhere that development of a US RD-180 was stopped because Delta IV initally got mot of the contracts, and it was more expensive.

Don't take my word for it though.

[B787_300]

Not really shortsightedness, just a belief that this wouldn't happen. SpaceX came in and shook that all up though because they are undercutting the launch market, ULA had to find a way to be viable and that was with Vulcan, and unfortunately around the same time Russia started their thing with Ukraine causing the politics to shift and the engine ban. ULA can still make a Delta IV, they just dont want to because unless someone is buying a DIV:H the other launch masses are much more economically covered by other rockets namely Atlas V, and Falcon 9. so they have a rocket that was competing against another of their rockets but was priced a whole lot more. Also both DIV and AV are old enough that they really should have had a Mid-life evolution (like Ariane 5 [ going from Ariane 5 to 5 ECA]) but that has not happened and with the ban on RD180's for govt launches (note the ban does not stop them from buying more for commercial launches) they cant really compete for the government contracts because Falcon 9 is SO much cheaper (current issues not taken into account).

[Sidereus]

Not really shortsightedness, just a belief that this wouldn't happen.

Depending on our relationship with Russia to remain stable is pretty much the definition of shortsightedness (especially given that what happened in the Ukraine wasn't in any way unprecedented), but that's wondering a bit too much into politics, I think...

[fredinno]

Not really shortsightedness, just a belief that this wouldn't happen. SpaceX came in and shook that all up though because they are undercutting the launch market, ULA had to find a way to be viable and that was with Vulcan, and unfortunately around the same time Russia started their thing with Ukraine causing the politics to shift and the engine ban. ULA can still make a Delta IV, they just dont want to because unless someone is buying a DIV:H the other launch masses are much more economically covered by other rockets namely Atlas V, and Falcon 9. so they have a rocket that was competing against another of their rockets but was priced a whole lot more. Also both DIV and AV are old enough that they really should have had a Mid-life evolution (like Ariane 5 [ going from Ariane 5 to 5 ECA]) but that has not happened and with the ban on RD180's for govt launches (note the ban does not stop them from buying more for commercial launches) they cant really compete for the government contracts because Falcon 9 is SO much cheaper (current issues not taken into account).

I think maybe a Delta H2 O2 Core that is Atlas core diameter, but Delta core length, (with SLS Dark Knight SRB derived SRB or Space Shuttle SRB derived SRB as boosters) using a reduced thrust RS-68 would be a good idea. But it probably would be difficult to make modular, so perhaps that's why that route was not taken.

Another point of speculation: Perhaps the ICPS (which has about 10T more propellant then Centaur), coupled with another set of SRBs (for a total of 8 SRBs) could prevent the need for the development of ACES. It would also give the stage the benefit of greater use, and more mass production.

[rtxoff]

The license to RD-180s for use on Atlas expires in 2022. Fat chance it will be renewed due to politics.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2512/1

Well i didn't want a source to this. SomeGuy12 claimed that they actually started producing of the RD-180 in the US although it was already explained that this is not going to happen. I want a source for this claim or else this claim is not worth anything.