Russia may cooperate with China in designing engine for super heavy-lift rocket - Energomash director
MOSCOW. June 1 (Interfax) - Russia is not prepared to deliver spacecraft engines to China, but views a possible partnership to jointly build such an engine as promising, Russian Energomash power engineering company general director Igor Arbuzov told Interfax in an interview.
"It is a special market, which is largely based on copying existing solutions, even though in terms of strategic interaction, China can be viewed as a partner in implementing a joint project to design a rocket, let's say a super heavy-lift rocket," Arbuzov said.
"We have something to offer in that respect. I mean the RD-171 engine or a modernized engine with a thrust of up to 1,000 tonnes. The arrangement that we have with American companies to make engines here and then ship them to the U.S. cannot be implemented with China," he said.
One of the possible options for cooperation would be an Energomash project to develop a new engine especially for China, he said.
"It will also be discussed with Chinese colleagues, but what's important here is to establish systemic cooperation within large-scale projects and then make appropriate decisions," Arbuzov said.
The full version of Arbuzov's interview will be published on the interfax.ru and militarynews.ru websites on Friday.