Pentagon denies Russian rocket engine waiver for Lockheed-Boeing venture

[Zorro]

Source: Reuters

The Pentagon on Friday declined to waive a U.S. law banning the use of Russian rocket engines for military and spy satellite launches, rejecting an urgent request from United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.

ULA, the monopoly provider of such launches since its creation in 2006, has said it needs the waiver to compete against privately held Space Exploration Technologies Corp, or SpaceX, in a new U.S. Air Force competition for satellite launches. Bids are due for the competition by Nov. 16.

The U.S. Defense Department said it would continue to monitor the situation, and was looking at a range of options, including possible sole-source contract awards, to keep both companies in business and ensure more than one supplier was available in the event of failures.

Prompted by Russia's annexation of Crimea last year, U.S. lawmakers banned the use of Russian RD-180 rocket engines for military and spy satellite launches after 2019.

Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pentagon-denies-russian-rocket-engine-225147596.html

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This decision will bring ULA's lobbyists out in droves to pressure their captive lawmakers to rescind the rocket engine ban for "national security reasons". How ironic.

[Igel]

1. The RD-180 was a decent rocket engine.

Kerosene/oxygen, reusable, easily maintained, relatively simple even if it did include steering by having the nozzles gimbel. In other words, cheap, reasonably efficient, and pretty reliable. Included tech from the '70s to the 2000s.

(I worked on the massive and massively profitable translation project that was required for setting up any parallel US-sited production facility and for working with the engine itself.)

[Zorro]

3. I think banning the Russian rocket engines was another short-sighted political decision

Probably good for SpaceX business, though.

[lovuian]

2. We need to hire our own USA workers

for these important jobs