Despite earlier reported hopes that Putin seeks a deal with Trump, as opposed to escalating tensions, it appears Russia is planniong to do just that.
Last Friday (the 13th), just before the US, UK and France launched 105 Tomahawk missiles at Syria, we noted that as part of Russian countermeasures against US sanctions, it could halt titanium exports to the US, critical for the production of Boeing airplanes, which promptly sent Boeing’s stock lower. Continue reading
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is launched / Getty Images
Industry officials say military won’t move fully to American-built engines until at least 2024
The Pentagon will remain dependent on Russian rocket engines to launch military satellites into space through at least the mid-2020s, despite the U.S. government allocating billions of dollars to defense contractors to produce an American-made replacement.
The projection adds several years to initial targets laid out in 2014 by lawmakers and senior Air Force officials, who ordered the United States begin phasing out Russia’s RD-180 engines amid national security concerns spurred by the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea. Continue reading
In June 2016, US Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, who was the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, attempted to cut off any further purchase of the Russian engines, proposing US companies compete to provide the United States with a reliable, domestic space launch platform.
Russia will supply the largest ever number of space rocket engines to the United States in 2017 within the framework of the previous agreements, head of the Russia’s NPO Energomash corporation Igor Arbuzov said on Wednesday. Continue reading
America continues to suicide itself out of existence any way it can, with space also being a frontier:
In January, the US Air Force awarded contracts to Orbital ATK and SpaceX to develop prototypes of US-built rocket engines to replace the RD-180.
Full US space launch capability may be delayed beyond 2019 if it cuts its supply of Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines, US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. Continue reading
Not only is the United States dependent on Russian space engines, it’s (NASA) also dependent on Russia to even reach space and has to pay $68 million per astronaut lifted up (See also HERE). Further adding insult to injury, Russia has even banned American astronauts from the International Space Station from the year 2020 on. Regardless of whatever Russia does, the United States continues to suicide itself and has even as recently as March of this year, decided to scrap its own rockets in favor of its Russian counterpart’s rockets.
Why a nation with so many checks and balances to prevent national suicide would do this is just beyond words. The only logical explanation is a fifth column destroying the nation from within. You don’t make hundreds of mistakes in a row and get to be called an idiot. However, the current American leadership loves it when ignorant citizens call them stupid or ignorant, as proving everything as being intentional makes them criminal.
Snead, an aerospace engineer, said there would be significant risk for ULA to abandon the Russian RD-180 engine.
Thomas Zimmer – The US government’s space transportation policy continues to keep the country using primarily Russian space engines, experts told Sputnik on Friday.
“US national space transportation policy has been haunted by the ‘we hope for the best’ political decisions made since the 1980s that have continued the use of expendable launch vehicles,” Spacefaring Institute President Mike Snead said. Continue reading
Sacrificing national security for cost will cost America dearly in the future. NASA is already 99.9% dependent on Russia to go into space.
The use of the Delta IV space launch vehicle will be discontinued in favor of the Atlas V that uses the Russian made RD-180 rocket to launch US national security payloads into space, United Launch Alliance (ULA) President and Chief Executive Officer Tory Bruno said.
“Delta IV is entirely redundant to the Atlas V in terms of its performance,” Bruno stated in a US House Armed Services Committee hearing on space programs on Tuesday. Continue reading
WASHINGTON, December 22 (Sputnik) — The US Air Force will implement sections of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) restricting use of the Russian-made RD-180 rocket engine, which is used to deliver US national security payloads into space, an Air Force spokesperson told the Sputnik news agency on Monday.
“The Air Force is committed to ending reliance on the Russian RD-180 as soon as possible and is assessing the specific impacts from restrictions on its use,” Air Force spokesperson Captain Chris Hoyler said. Continue reading
In case you didn’t realize how dependent the United States is on Russia, this shows you the depth. Today, America also can’t even send humans into space without renting a seat from Russia. The U.S. is willfully committing suicide and is beyond the point of no return.
RD-180 rochet engines are produced at Moscow region’s Khimki-based power engineering company Energomash
WASHINGTON, August 21. /ITAR-TASS/. US company United Launch Alliance (ULA) has received Wednesday first two Russian rocket engines RD-180 under a contract to buy 29 such engines, ULA spokesperson Jessica Rye told ITAR-TASS.
The dispute began in April, when a leaked Nasa memo revealed that the agency would be suspending all contact with the Russian government because of the country’s “ongoing violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
Although the involvement of the US government was not explicit, the space agency’s decision was widely assumed to have involved the White House and State Department. Subsequent export restrictions – more specifically, “high technology defence articles or services” – confirmed the US’s intent to punish Russia’s struggling space industry.
However, there’s one area where the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, remains king: transport. Continue reading
Russia will suspend the work carrid [sic] out by US GPS stations sited within its borders if no agreement is reached to set up GLONASS ground stations in the US, said Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin to the press.
“We are suspending the work of these stations on Russian territory starting from June 1,” he said as reported by Interfax. Rogozin said that American stations were deployed in Russia in line with agreements signed in 1993 and 2011.
“In accordance with these agreements, eleven GPS stations are located in ten Russian regions,” he said. Continue reading
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