![]() The Air Force needs up to 18 RD-180 engines through fiscal year 2022 to ensure access to space and enable competition, the service's outgoing acquisition chief William LaPlante wrote in a July 16 response. ![]() Shelby is concerned about a minimum six-year gap in guaranteed access to space due to the 2015 ban, according to a July 15 letter he wrote to US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James. "Sen. Shelby is currently evaluating how the omnibus appropriations bill could ensure that, until an American-made rocket engine to replace the RD-180 is developed, the Air Force has access to the RD-180 to guarantee America's access to space, eliminate a possible national security risk, and secure approximately 800 jobs in Alabama," Shelby spokeswoman Torrie Matous said in a Thursday email. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican and member of the Appropriations Committee, to add language to a massive federal spending bill that would allow ULA to keep buying RD-180 engines from Russia until a domestic alternative is available. Alabama is home to a massive ULA rocket factory. McCain's letter is a response to efforts by Sen. ![]() ULA's dropping out of the Air Force's GPS III Launch Services completion, a crucial phase of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, should not be "misconstrued" as a reason to undermine planned sanctions on Russia, McCain warned.īy bowing out, ULA made good on its threat to skip the competition unless it got relief from the Fiscal Year 2015 defense budget's ban on the use of Russian RD-180 rocket engines for military satellite launches after 2019. ULA, which relies on the Russian RD-180 rocket engine to power its Atlas V rocket, earlier this year begged the Defense Department for some relief from the ban, which was established in response to Moscow's annexation of Crimea last year. ![]()
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