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The Engine Competition

6 Comments

The race between Aerojet Rocketdyne and Blue Origin heats up. But as noted in comments over there, there’s a big word missing in the story: Reusability. And the issue isn’t so much reusability of the engines themselves (though I’ve heard nothing to indicate that the AR1 will be reusable), but in the vehicle design. ULA does not want to continue Atlas with a new engine; they know they need at least a recoverable propulsion/avionics unit of Vulcan to even hope to be competitive with SpaceX (and Blue Origin).

6 thoughts on “The Engine Competition”

  1. What makes you think AR-1 it not reusable? Even the RD-180 was based on RD-170 (Energia) technology which was meant to be reused like a dozen times. Allegedly they are not using special coatings on the AR-1, it’s made of monolithic 3D printed parts, unlike on the RD-180. I think the potential is there that it will last even more missions than an RD-180. The only question is which kind of nozzle will they select for this engine as that as an impact on reusability.

    What I wonder is why did they select a dual-chambered design? The USA has been able to solve the combustion instability problem a long time ago. So why the step back? SpaceX and Blue Origin seem to have gone for single chambered designs as you would expect.

    1. I’m not saying it’s not reusable, I’m saying we don’t know whether or not it is. The RD-180 isn’t (or at least wasn’t designed to be) and it’s supposed to be a replacement. And the Atlas isn’t designed for SMART reuse.

  3. I agree that the Atlas vehicle design needs to be changed for reusability in the future. But I can certainly understand them not doing a reusable at this point. It decreases design risk and they need a launcher soon. If they take too long they’ll lose any customers they do have today.

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