With an industry day scheduled to take place Thursday and Friday at Los Angeles AFB, Calif., the field of companies vying for the Air Force’s multi-billion dollar next generation rocket engine is becoming clearer.
ATK [ATK], Blue Origin–United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Aerojet Rocketdyne have all formally announced their intent to bid for the Air Force’s next-generation engine program. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is also working on a next-generation engine called Raptor, but spokesman John Taylor on Tuesday declined to say, as a matter of company policy, if the company responded to the Air Force’s request for information (RFI) regarding interest in the program. Responses were due Sept. 19.
Aerojet Rocketdyne spokeswoman Lynn Machon said Tuesday the company responded to the RFI on the new engine with the company’s AR-1. Aerojet Rocketdyne and Dynetics are also working together on a risk reduction program under a NASA contract to build a prototype of a RD-180 replacement, Steve Cook, Dynetics director of corporate development, told Defense Daily Monday. A Dynetics spokesman declined to say whether the two companies would team for a full-up RD-180 replacement beyond risk reduction and Machon did not respond by press time as to whether the company teamed with Dynetics on its RFI response.
ATK announced Tuesday it is offering a United States-developed commercial solid rocket solution as a replacement for the Russian-made RD-180 engine that currently powers a majority of Defense Department and intelligence community (IC) space launches in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. DoD wants to get away from relying on a Russian component to power critical national security capabilities.
ATK spokeswoman Trina Helquist said Tuesday the company can have its engine offering available within three years. Helquist said ATK developed its Castor 30XL engine from design to testing in 22 months and is slated to fly on the next Antares launch in October. The Antares rocket is developed by Orbital Sciences [ORB].
The Air Force Aug. 19 requested information from industry about the possibility of a domestically-produced next-generation rocket engine. The service said it was open to a range of possible options, but not limited to: a replacement engine with similar performance characteristics to currently used engines, alternative configurations that would provide similar performance characteristics to currently used engines, alternative configurations that would provide similar performance (such as a multiple engine configuration) to existing military-launch systems and the use of alternative launch systems for military-class systems.
ATK said over the past seven years the company has incorporated new technologies like those developed through innovative design improvement into the development of six new solid rocket motors, including some developed in less than two years. Though an older, but proven technology, solid rocket motors are optimal for first-stage performance as they provide high-lift thrust, allowing for more payload margin. ATK said. Solid rocket motors also require less ground and launch infrastructure, resulting in fewer launch delays, the company said.
Charles Miller, president of launch consulting company NextGen Space LLC, told Defense Daily Thursday the teaming arrangement of Blue Origin and ULA could spell the end for Aerojet Rocketdyne. Miller said Aerojet Rocketdyne’s primary customer, at the moment, is ULA, which just said it would pursue a new supplier of engines, and its secondary customer is Orbital. ULA uses Aerojet Rocketdyne’s RS-68A engine on its Delta IV launch vehicle.
“I think this is a death knell, potentially, for Aerojet,” Miller said Thursday. “I think the news here is the paradigm has just been shattered for rocket engine development in the USA and Aerojet is in the old paradigm.”
Miller said even though Aerojet Rockedyne is building smaller engines for the upper stages of the Delta IV and the Atlas V, Aerojet’s cost model is a problem in that the company has a large overhead rate that needs to be spread over many different customers. Once those customers start getting eliminated, Miller said, the cost of every remaining engine the company produces increases.
“They are in a mega-cost spiral here, which is not good for them,” Miller said.
ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA]. Aerojet Rocketdyne is a division of GenCorp [GY].