Technical problems accompanying the development of the UNITED Launch Alliance (ULA) alliance (ULA) can make it impossible to fail the pentagon refusal from the Russian RD-180 engine by 2022, as Congress requires, Spacenews reports, referring to the report of the US Government.
According to this document, we are talking about the difficulties related to the development of the BE-4 engine Blue Origin, which can make the Vulcan certification in 2021. As a result, there may be a situation where the Pentagon will have to rely on the Atlas 5 missile in 2022 and further.
Spacenews reminds that in 2016 the Congress banned the Pentagon to use the Atlas 5 missile with the Russian engine RD-180 after 2022.
In April “Roskosmos” reported that the Energomash Research and Production Association was transferred to the American side of six RD-180 engines, which was the latest delivery under the current contract.
In July 2020, Blue Origin has delivered ULA first BE-4, which is not serial, and is intended for testing.
Vulcan is created on the replacement of Atlas 5. Two single-chamber BE-4 installed on the first stage of VULCAN carrier (actually atlas 6), in the aggregate will develop a large crave than one two-chamber RD-180 of the first stage atlas 5. Unlike RD -180, working on kerosene, BE-4 uses methane. Vulcan with American BE-4 must replace ATLAS 5 media with Russian RD-180.