4 ms·

From the article: "...from proceeding with plans to buy Russian-made rocket engines." How many manufacturers of rocket engines are there? Edited: Grammar corr

From the article: "...from proceeding with plans to buy Russian-made rocket engines." How many manufacturers of rocket engines are there? Edited: Grammar correction.

jacquesm 12y ago
Launch vehicles would probably be the more interesting one here, 'rocket engines' is not really what they're buying, the article talks about 36 rockets, not just engines. Parties realistically capable of supplying those are few: - Oribital Sciences - SpaceX - Sea Launch - Starsem - United Launch Alliance - EADS/Arianespace - ILS - ISC Possibly others. edit: combined EADS/Arianespace tx nraynaud
- rst 12y ago
  Rocket engines is what they're buying in this instance (or rather, what ULA has been prevented from buying by the injunction): specifically, RD-180 engines, built by the Russian firm NPO Energomash for use on the first stage of United Launch Alliance's (otherwise) American Atlas V. (BTW, quite a few of the rocket makers you named buy their engines from others. ULA also buys engines from Pratt and Whitney, and Orbital has several suppliers for its various launchers.) The larger suit does concern a block purchase of whole rockets from ULA, but the injunction does not interfere with the block buy, just payments to the Russian subcontractor.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Interesting, ok so what special requirements could there be attached to Russian engines that US built engines could not supply? I can see how if they are dimensioned in such a way that they will fit only a launch vehicle by a single party how that might be usable as a trick to lock out competitors (first order launch vehicles without engines, then order engines without launch vehicles). Both of those would be harder to compete with than ordering whole rockets!
    - rst 12y ago
      Among kerosene/oxygen rockets, the RD-180 gets an unusually high amount of propulsive kinetic energy per unit of fuel (technically, high specfic impulse), in part due to a more efficient combustion cycle (staged combustion), and in part due to very advanced materials science the Russians have, that the US hasn't matched. (And other engines with similar performance are also Russian: the RD-170, which is signficantly larger than the RD-180; the NK-33, which is quite a bit smaller...) There is an American manufacturer that has licensed the RD-180 design, and technically has the rights to build them here, but they haven't --- and since that would involve duplicating Russian metallurgy, there's some skepticism that they could. (At a recent Senate hearing, it was the head of ULA(!) who said the Russian design did "things we found that our textbooks said were impossible".) If you're asking why ULA can't just buy something else from, say, Pratt and Whitney, then the short answer is, "they don't sell anything that fits on an Atlas V". Think about trying to use the engine from a VW bug (or a large truck) to replace the engine in a pickup: even if the fuels are the same (and you can't take that for granted!), the fittings and performance characteristics are different enough that the combined thing just wouldn't work.
      - tanzam75 12y ago
        The Chinese are developing an engine, the YF-100, based on the Russian RD-120. It's a staged combustion engine with an oxygen-rich preburner -- very similar technology to the RD-180. The YF-100 has already gone through a full-length test firing on the ground, and the CZ-7 rocket that it's mounted on is scheduled for a test flight later this year. If the Chinese have been able to make it, then I see no reason why we can't. P.S. Does Pratt & Whitney still make rocket engines? I thought they sold Rocketdyne to Aerojet?
        rst 12y ago
        You appear to be right about P&W. About the engines: heck, the Space Shuttle Main Engine was staged-combustion Oxygen-Hydrogen. The question isn't whether the US could produce such an engine. It's how soon, and how reliably. ULA has laid in what they say is a two-year stock of engines as a hedge against ... hiccups in the supply chain, but they'd need new engines after that. For a clean-sheet design, that would be a crazy aggressive schedule. With RD-180 design docs in hand, well... we may soon see.
- nraynaud 12y ago
  you can't count Arianespace and EADS separately, they both work for one rocket (doing different parts): Ariane.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Good point, I'll remove EADS and combine the two entries.
nraynaud 12y ago
it depends on the power braket we are talking about, maybe 2-3 in the US, 2-3 in Europe (but only one big), 1-2 in Russia, plus maybe 5 in various nuclear/spatial states in the world (China, India, Pakistan ...)
InclinedPlane 12y ago
Not as many as you'd think. If we restrict the field to merely high power liquid fueled rocket engines that are potentially for sale (to be differentiated from makers of rocket engines that are an integral part of, say, a nationalized launch vehicle, and not for sale as parts) then you have: NPO Energomash, RKK Energiya, Aerojet-Rocketdyne, and maybe SpaceX. Other than those companies, if you want a liquid fueled rocket engine with more than 100 kN of thrust then you'll have to make one for yourself or go begging to one of the vertically integrated rocket makers (Snecma makes the Ariane 5 first stage engine, China, India, and Japan have their own launchers, as do a few other countries).

From the article: "...from proceeding with plans to buy Russian-made rocket engines." How many manufacturers of rocket engines are there? Edited: Grammar correction.

jacquesm 12y ago

Launch vehicles would probably be the more interesting one here, 'rocket engines' is not really what they're buying, the article talks about 36 rockets, not just engines. Parties realistically capable of supplying those are few: - Oribital Sciences - SpaceX - Sea Launch - Starsem - United Launch Alliance - EADS/Arianespace - ILS - ISC Possibly others. edit: combined EADS/Arianespace tx nraynaud

rst 12y ago
Rocket engines is what they're buying in this instance (or rather, what ULA has been prevented from buying by the injunction): specifically, RD-180 engines, built by the Russian firm NPO Energomash for use on the first stage of United Launch Alliance's (otherwise) American Atlas V. (BTW, quite a few of the rocket makers you named buy their engines from others. ULA also buys engines from Pratt and Whitney, and Orbital has several suppliers for its various launchers.) The larger suit does concern a block purchase of whole rockets from ULA, but the injunction does not interfere with the block buy, just payments to the Russian subcontractor.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Interesting, ok so what special requirements could there be attached to Russian engines that US built engines could not supply? I can see how if they are dimensioned in such a way that they will fit only a launch vehicle by a single party how that might be usable as a trick to lock out competitors (first order launch vehicles without engines, then order engines without launch vehicles). Both of those would be harder to compete with than ordering whole rockets!
  - rst 12y ago
    Among kerosene/oxygen rockets, the RD-180 gets an unusually high amount of propulsive kinetic energy per unit of fuel (technically, high specfic impulse), in part due to a more efficient combustion cycle (staged combustion), and in part due to very advanced materials science the Russians have, that the US hasn't matched. (And other engines with similar performance are also Russian: the RD-170, which is signficantly larger than the RD-180; the NK-33, which is quite a bit smaller...) There is an American manufacturer that has licensed the RD-180 design, and technically has the rights to build them here, but they haven't --- and since that would involve duplicating Russian metallurgy, there's some skepticism that they could. (At a recent Senate hearing, it was the head of ULA(!) who said the Russian design did "things we found that our textbooks said were impossible".) If you're asking why ULA can't just buy something else from, say, Pratt and Whitney, then the short answer is, "they don't sell anything that fits on an Atlas V". Think about trying to use the engine from a VW bug (or a large truck) to replace the engine in a pickup: even if the fuels are the same (and you can't take that for granted!), the fittings and performance characteristics are different enough that the combined thing just wouldn't work.
    - tanzam75 12y ago
      The Chinese are developing an engine, the YF-100, based on the Russian RD-120. It's a staged combustion engine with an oxygen-rich preburner -- very similar technology to the RD-180. The YF-100 has already gone through a full-length test firing on the ground, and the CZ-7 rocket that it's mounted on is scheduled for a test flight later this year. If the Chinese have been able to make it, then I see no reason why we can't. P.S. Does Pratt & Whitney still make rocket engines? I thought they sold Rocketdyne to Aerojet?
      - rst 12y ago
        You appear to be right about P&W. About the engines: heck, the Space Shuttle Main Engine was staged-combustion Oxygen-Hydrogen. The question isn't whether the US could produce such an engine. It's how soon, and how reliably. ULA has laid in what they say is a two-year stock of engines as a hedge against ... hiccups in the supply chain, but they'd need new engines after that. For a clean-sheet design, that would be a crazy aggressive schedule. With RD-180 design docs in hand, well... we may soon see.
nraynaud 12y ago
you can't count Arianespace and EADS separately, they both work for one rocket (doing different parts): Ariane.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Good point, I'll remove EADS and combine the two entries.

nraynaud 12y ago

it depends on the power braket we are talking about, maybe 2-3 in the US, 2-3 in Europe (but only one big), 1-2 in Russia, plus maybe 5 in various nuclear/spatial states in the world (China, India, Pakistan ...)

InclinedPlane 12y ago

Not as many as you'd think. If we restrict the field to merely high power liquid fueled rocket engines that are potentially for sale (to be differentiated from makers of rocket engines that are an integral part of, say, a nationalized launch vehicle, and not for sale as parts) then you have: NPO Energomash, RKK Energiya, Aerojet-Rocketdyne, and maybe SpaceX. Other than those companies, if you want a liquid fueled rocket engine with more than 100 kN of thrust then you'll have to make one for yourself or go begging to one of the vertically integrated rocket makers (Snecma makes the Ariane 5 first stage engine, China, India, and Japan have their own launchers, as do a few other countries).