Orbital Sciences, CRS, and the future of Antares

[TythosEternal]

Interesting announcement made today: Orbital has decided to jump to the Atlas V for a 2015 launch:

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2014/12/09/orbital-confirms-plans-launch-cygnus-florida/20153009/

They are also citing 2016 as the first launch of an Antares using Orbital's own replacement for the AJ-26.

[Kryten]

They are also citing 2016 as the first launch of an Antares using Orbital's own replacement for the AJ-26.

*Energomash's own, almost certainly.

[AbhChallenger]

Still engines from Russia. Wake me up when Taxpayers stop having to pay for engines not made in the USA.

[Kryten]

Still engines from Russia. Wake me up when Taxpayers stop having to pay for engines not made in the USA.

Wake me up when taxpayers ready to pay $1.5billion for the AR-1 program, and equivalent per-engine costs. Or when orbital sciences stops being a private company, for that matter.

[Tiberion]

Boy, replacing the AJ-26 with another Russian engine seems... unwise. It's going to seriously hamper their competitiveness for government contracts on Antares, and that's ignoring the threats of engine sales being halted in another Putin.... episode?

They're currently bidding on a new NASA cargo contract right now, being awarded in April. Common sense would indicate they would be at a disadvantage there now. But I guess government aren''t really known for that, so we'll see.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Tiberion

[TythosEternal]

*Energomash's own, almost certainly.

Seems likely--the RD-193 is what's being floated around in unofficial circles. It's already been "preliminarily accepted", whatever that means. Even for an existing engine (though granted, not one with much flight heritage, but any natural number is bigger than 0), 2016 seems like an unrealistically-short turnaround.

[Kryten]

RD-193 (under RD-181 designation for export) has been confirmed as the new engine for Antares.