Are Aerojet and Blue Origin Rocket engines worse than "Made in Russia"? – The fool

"It is no secret that the United States aims to replace our engines with US engines that are probably less reliable and more expensive but indigenous."- Igor Komarov, former director general of Roscosmos

"But can we, let's just stop [selling rocket engines to the United States]? We can."- Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin

Russian political statements do not always make much sense and are not always consistent. (Again, this is not necessarily confined to Russia these days, is not it?) Yet, some of the statements that have emerged recently from President Putin's empire raise the bar for incongruity.

On the one hand, faced with the prospect of US companies inventing a new rocket engine to propel the Atlas V rockets of the United Launch Alliance (ULA), the Russian space agency has cast a shadow over the industry American space. US engines are too expensive, says Komarov. And they are of lower quality than rocket engines made in Russia – the implication being that the ULA should buy RD-180 Russian engines instead of new engines from Blue Origin or Aerojet Rocketdyne (NYSE: AJRD).

On the other hand, Russia threatens to refuse to sell the same engine that it is so impatient that ULA continues to buy. Echoing the threats of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin last month, Russian Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sergei Ryabukhin warned that Russia could suspend its rocket engine exports to the United States.

So, does Russia want to sell us its rocket engines or not? What is a space investor wondering, will it take for Russia to decide?

Russia decides

It turns out that the answer to this question is "money". Reverting to the threats of the past, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin now believes that Russia must "weigh the pros and cons" from the point of view of "economic pragmatism". And when that happens, the scales are firmly in favor of continuing to make money with the American space program.

Earlier this month, Rogozin concluded that "it is necessary to continue to export advanced engines" to the United States. Whatever their political disagreement, Mr Rogozin told the Russian news agency TASS that "Russia is dependent on the United States also depend on Russian rocket engine deliveries."

RD-180 sales are essential for Russia

The first part of this statement is clearly correct. DefenseNews.com estimates that the Russian company Energomash, which manufactures rocket engines for both Roscosmos and for export, derives about half of its annual business turnover from the sale of RD rocket engines -180 to power the Atlas V rockets of the ULA. The additional revenue comes from the sale of the smallest RD-181 engine used on the Northrop Grumman Antares rocket.

Without these revenues, Energomash – barely profitable in most years – would almost certainly be losing steam.

But is the RD-180 good for America?

As to whether Russian rocket engines are "[more] reliable and [less] expensive "than the rockets of their US competitors, well – that is much more debatable.

According to TASS, Energomash sells its RD-180 engines to ULA for about $ 9.9 million each. This is pretty cheap, and with 860,000 pounds of sea level thrust, a single RD-180 engine is powerful enough to serve as the main engine on an Atlas V launcher designed by Lockheed Martin.

To replace the RD-180, two US companies are designing smaller engines that will run two by two to launch the new ULA Vulcan rocket, which is expected to replace the Atlas V in 2020.

Aerojet Rocketdyne hopes ULA will choose its "AR1" liquid oxygen (LOX) / kerosene engine to replace the RD-180 on future ULA rockets starting in 2019. With only 500,000 pounds of sea level thrust. than the RD-180. What's more, Aerojet is targeting a unit cost of around $ 10 to $ 12.5 million for each AR1 engine – which means that a pair will likely cost twice the selling price of a R & D -180. (And even that does not include the amortization of AR1's development costs, which is expected to reach $ 1 billion.)

Blue Origin says its BE-4 engine powered by LOX / Methane – currently the favorite to fuel the ULA's Vulcan – will be ready to fly by 2019. Blue Origin has not released exact price for the BE-4, but promises that once developed, it will sell "about 30 to 40% less than the RD-180 engine".

That implies a membership price as low as $ 6 million or $ 7 million – but that's the cost of just a BE-4 engine (remember, Vulcan will need two of them to take off) or the cost of a job pair has not been clarified. Potentially, at $ 7 million per engine, Blue Origin's solution could cost $ 14 million.

That would be 40% more than Russia charges the RD-180. On the other hand, Blue Origin points out that with a combined push of 1.1 million pounds at sea level, a pair of BE-4s can lift as much as an RD-180. and an additional solid rocket booster could. According to Blue Origin, eliminating the need to buy a booster would save $ 10 million per launch during heavy haul missions. In this scenario, two BE-4s could end up costing less than one RD-180 plus an additional booster – a lot Less.

The result for space investors

Net-net, it seems to me that NASA and the air force will not pay also It is very advantageous to switch from Russian RD-180 to BE-4 from Blue Origin and maybe even save on some missions. But what about Komarov's claim that US engines are of inferior quality? Can the Air Force and NASA afford to switch from Russian engines to Blue Origin?

The quality of the RD-180 is undeniable. It has successfully launched 68 direct Atlas V flights into orbit for United Launch Alliance. That said, Blue Origin is renowned for its quality. To this day, his New Shepard The reusable rocket (which uses a BE-3 engine, predecessor of the BE-4) displays a reliability of 100%, flying nine times in a row without incident. Indeed, many of these test flights were made with the same engine, which Russia can not say of its RD-180.

While we will not know for certain the reliability of the BE-4 until it starts to fly, we should not wait long to get the answer. The first flight of Vulcan – and the BE-4 – is scheduled for next year.

Assuming everything goes well, the US reliance on Russian rocket engines may soon come to an end, and Blue Origin could have its first source of revenue in good faith and become a viable commercial space company.