US faces space launch rocket engine gap

The RD-180 rocket engine is built by the Russian
company NPO Energomash. Photo Credit: NASA

Air Force: RD-180 replacement timeline tight, could limit competition
Representatives from possible entrants into the selection for the new engine – United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Orbital ATK, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Blue Origin – told the committee earlier Friday that they could get their rockets ready by the 2019 deadline. However, Hyten warned, those rockets would still need to be certified, and launch systems would need to be adjusted to work with the new rockets, adding years until a new launch system would be ready.
 
The Space Review: The engine problem
Lately, deteriorating US relations with Russia have raised the issue of whether the Atlas V booster should continue to utilize the Russian built RD-180 engine. Similar concerns exist relative to the use of Russian-manufactured engines in the Antares booster.

Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-26 engine (mod NK-33) fails on the test stand
- SpaceFlight Insider

The concerns were heightened by the failure of a Russian-built NK-33 engine during the fifth Antares launch last October. The US Congress is even seeking to eliminate the use of Russian engines by American launch vehicle companies for national security missions.

Blue Origin engines to power Atlas V rockets - The Washington Post

This situation has produced a new urgency in the US space launch industry. New suppliers are seeking entry into the marketplace and well-established companies are presenting new proposals. United Launch Alliance’s announcement that they have chosen Blue Origin to develop an engine to replace the RD-180 confirms how seriously this issue is regarded by one of the major players in the industry.

USA: New BE-4 rocket engine not a drop in replacement for Russian RD-180

Jeff Bezos, Co-founder of Amazon and owner of Blue Origin (English): "A BE-4 engine is a remarkable machine, it's 550,000 pounds of thrust, it has a very low recurring cost and very low life cycle cost. Cost to space is a very important factor, so basically cost and reliability are the two driving factors. The BE-4 uses commercially available fuel, it's liquefied natural gas. Its reusable and it's built and tested and designed and engineered a hundred percent in the United States."
Tory Bruno, CEO of the United Launch Alliance (English): "The BE-4 is not a one for one replacement for the RD-180, which is a kerosene burning engine. But what we intend to do is to use a pair of these in our base line Atlas vehicle, that would provide actually a higher performance, higher thrust level together, than we have now. RD-180 is a great engine, it's a real work horse, it's reliable, it's high performance, but this is an opportunity to really jump, as Jeff said into the 21st century of modern technology so we can achieve more performance at a lower cost."

Meanwhile, Aerojet Rocketdyne has proposed a new American-made replacement for the RD-180 engine, while the US Air Force has suggested a larger effort to develop not only new engines but other improved launch vehicle technology as well. All this seemingly has come as a surprise, but at this point it might be instrumental to recall just how we got in this situation.

Aerojet Rocketdyne recently conducted hot-fire testing of
a multi-element preburner injector for the AR1 rocket engine.
A similar multi-element injector built using
additive manufacturing will be hot-fire tested this spring.

When the decision was made in the early 1970s to develop the Space Shuttle and end production of all other US launch vehicles, that also constituted a decision to end development of rocket engines other than that required by the shuttle.

Space Shuttle main engine -
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

currently we don’t have one American-made first-stage liquid rocket engine that is being used in the manner envisioned when it was designed, and very few engines designed to either employ the most modern technology or to be produced at low cost.
The rocket engine dilemma the US faces today is not the result of a sudden and unpredicted shift in international relations but is due to both government and industry making the wrong choices, repeatedly, over the course of more than 45 years. Essentially, the country has rather studiously avoided making the effort required for a new engine development. Those decisions seemed logical, reasonable, politically necessary, cheap, or simply inevitable at the time, but ultimately proved to be seriously flawed. Much of our history in this area is not that of constant stunning achievements but rather one of frequent awe-inspiring mistakes followed by mad scrambles to recover. We are once more in that phase today.

Related/Background:

• The-RD180-Replacement and the Future of the U . S. Rocket Motor Industrial Base
• U.S. Air Force Outlines First Steps in RD-180 Replacement Effort
• Aerojet Rocketdyne Hot-Fire Tests Additive Manufactured Components for the AR1 Engine to Maintain 2019 Delivery | Aerojet Rocketdyne 
• With continued turmoil over RD-180, ULA mulls new rocket engine - SpaceFlight Insider
• ULA CEO Outlines BE-4 Engine Reuse Economic Case | Space content from Aviation Week
• ULA Buying RD-180 Replacement From Blue Origin | Space content from Aviation WeekUnited Launch Alliance (ULA) has picked Blue Origin, the secretive Seattle-based space-vehicle company founded and funded by Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos, to complete development of a 550,000-lb. thrust rocket engine that could replace the Russian-built RD-180 at the Atlas V power plant in the coming decade.
  ULA will pay Blue Origin an unspecified but "significant" sum to help defray the cost of developing its BE-4 engine, which has been in the works under wraps for the past three years in Seattle and at the Blue Origin test facility near Van Horn, Texas. The launch services company selected the BE-4 after kicking off a search for an RD-180 replacement when political tensions over events in Ukraine threatened continued supply of the big Russian engine.