Fwd: US to buy 60 Russian rocket engines worth $1 bln

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: January 16, 2015 at 11:11:17 AM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: US to buy 60 Russian rocket engines worth $1 bln

 

 

US to buy 60 Russian rocket engines worth $1 bln — company

January 16, 9:11 UTC+3
The RD-181 engines will be used for the first stage of the Antares rockets, manufactured by Orbital Sciences

 

© ITAR-TASS/Alexey Filippov

© ITAR-TASS/Alexei Filippov

USA to purchase Russia's Energomash rocket engines after 2016

 

MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. Russia's manufacturer NPO Energomash is to provide 60 new RD-181 rocket engines for US company Orbital Sciences, the Izvestia newspaper reported on Friday citing the president of RKK Energia space corporation.

A contract for the delivery of 20 rocket engines has already been signed, says Vladimir Solntsev, who participated in the deal representing Energomash, as he is the executive director of the group.

"We are committed to deliver 60 engines. Three options have been signed, each for 20 engines. 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," Solntsev told the newspaper in an interview.

Energomash, one of the world's leading rocket engine manufacturers, and Russia's United Rocket and Space Corporation have received all the necessary permissions from government bodies for the delivery of the RD-181 engines for Orbital Sciences, he said.

"The contract envisages restrictions for the use of RD-181 engines in military programs," Solntsev said, explaining that the rockets with the engine cannot be used for launching military spacecraft.

The contract worth around $1 billion for 60 engines includes not only the costs of the engine production but also a whole range of services - flight training, installing the rocket engine and conducting tests.

"I believe the contract is focused on cooperation within 15-25 years, as no one will regularly change engines on a rocket," he added.

The RD-181 engines will be used for the first stage of the Antares rockets, manufactured by Orbital Sciences. These rockets earlier used AJ-26 engines which were made on the basis of Soviet NK-33.

 

© 2015 TASS

 

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Russian Firm Seals $1 Billion Deal to Supply US Rocket Engines

World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: January 16, 2015 16:10 IST

 

Representational Image (Thinkstock)

Moscow, Russia:  A Russian manufacturer on Friday announced a $1 billion deal to supply engines for the US Antares rockets making deliveries to the International Space Station.

Russian producer Energia said in a statement that it had signed the bumper deal to build 60 engines with private US firm Orbital Science, which has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to supply the space station.

Deliveries of the new RD-181 engines would start in June, the statement said.

The agreement comes after an Orbital Science rocket suffered a catastrophic engine failure in October, forcing an end to its supply missions until further notice.

An unmanned Antares rocket packed with thousands of pounds of gear for astronauts exploded seconds after lift-off in the US, costing the company some $200 million.

The company said after the accident that a suspected rocket engine failure led a control operator to detonate the rocket in order to prevent damage to people in the area.

The firm pledged a speedy upgrade to its systems after saying that the engines used to power the Antares rocket were a pair of decades-old Ukrainian-designed AJ-26s, that were refurbished by Aerojet Rocketdyne.

The International Space Station is a rare area of US-Russian cooperation that has not been hit by the crisis in Ukraine, which has prompted Washington to impose sanctions on Moscow. 

 

 

Copyright © 2015 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. 

 

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