3 Sep 2018 19:51

Russia to continue to supply U.S. partners with rocket engines should they wish so - Rogozin

MOSCOW. Sept 3 (Interfax) - The United States has yet to develop rocket engines with characteristics comparable to Russia's, the Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin told reporters.

"Despite the massive pressure experienced by the U.S. customers, who ordered these engines, from the U.S. ruling class, the Congress, the United States has yet to create an alternative," Rogozin said.

"We hope that talks with the U.S. will continue. We think that the country's political leadership is supporting us despite the sanctions, it is necessary to preserve the export of high-tech products. If our U.S. colleagues show such a desire again, these supplies will be continued," Rogozin said.

Russia currently continues to supply the U.S. with RD-180/181 liquid-fuel engines designed and manufactured by Energomash. According to TsNIIMASH, the U.S. developments in the reas of rocket engines are inferior to Russia's.

"The RD -180, there's no way they get rid of them. They are urging the production of their own engines, but we know full well what engines they are going to make instead. I am speaking as an engineer: what they've thought up is nowhere near [the Russian engine]," Alexander Medvedev, Deputy General Director at the Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIIMASh) said at a conference in Moscow on Monday.

U.S. scientists and engineers have made good progress in the creation of the methane rocket engine, he said.

"That, of course, is another conversation. We must work in this direction," Medvedev said.