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 The Pentagon is scrambling to comply with a U.S. law that bans use
after 2019 of the Russian RD-180 rocket engine that fuels the Atlas
5 rocket for military and intelligence satellite launches. Congress
passed the law after Russia's annexation of the Crimea region of
Ukraine last year.
United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and
Boeing Co that now launches most big U.S. military and spy
satellites, is working to develop a less expensive U.S.-fueled
rocket called Vulcan, to use for military, civilian and commercial
launches from 2022 or 2023.
The joint venture hopes to use a new engine being developed by Blue
Origin, a company owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, but sees
Aerojet Rocketdyne's AR1 engine as a backup.
ULA and U.S. officials say ULA owns the data rights to the Atlas 5
rocket since the Air Force hired the company to provide launch
services instead of buying the rockets outright.
 "We have no intention of selling or transferring (the Atlas 5 data
rights)," said ULA spokeswoman Christa Bell. She said ULA planned to
keep launching Atlas 5 into the next decade as it transitioned to
the new Vulcan rocket.
ULA will soon face competition from privately held Space Exploration
Technologies, or SpaceX, which is nearing Air Force certification to
compete for some military launches.
Aerojet Rocketdyne's announcement raises the possibility that a
third team could compete for rocket launches.
Monday was the deadline for companies to respond to a draft request
for proposals issued by the Air Force in a competition to develop
prototypes for a homegrown propulsion system.
Julie Van Kleeck, Aerojet Rocketdyne's vice president for advanced
space and launch systems, said adapting a new U.S.-built engine to
the Atlas 5 rocket was the "lowest risk, most rapid and affordable"
way to end U.S. reliance on Russian engines. She said it made no
sense to retire the most capable and flexible launch system
available today.
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Aerojet Rocketdyne says the AR1 engine could be certified in 2019,
and integration onto the Atlas 5 should follow soon after.
Aerojet Rocketdyne, private research firm Dynetics Inc, and Schafer
Corp, an engineering firm headed by former NASA administrator
Michael Griffin, asked Defense Secretary Ash Carter about the data
and production rights of the Atlas 5, and use of its launch
facilities, in a letter dated April 29.
A Pentagon spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the letter from
Aerojet and the other companies.
Griffin, who served as the deputy chair of an independent review of
the RD-180 issue last year, said using the AR1 engine to power the
existing launch vehicle was "the right answer" for ending U.S.
dependence on Russian rocket engines.
"Rectifying an existing rocket with a new engine is a much lower
cost than starting over from scratch," he said.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Christian Plumb and Ken
Wills)
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