Russia halts rocket engine sales to US, suggests flying to space on ‘their broomsticks’

Russia will no longer ship rocket engines to the US as a result of the tensions between the two countries. The head of the agency put it on a state news broadcast: "Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don't know what to do."

The main thrust for ULA Atlas V launches has been formed by the two Russian engines that have been affected. Atlas and Antares launches are very much the minority when it comes to launch volume and capability, as you may have observed over the last few years.

Being part of an industry with long timelines means being prepared for situations like this in advance, and the U.S. has been working on reducing its reliance on Russian hardware for quite a while now. Blue Origin was tapped by ULA to develop a replacement for the Russian RD-180 engines.

The BE-4 engines aren't quite ready to go, but ULA head Tory Bruno said they are getting there. The Cygnus flights that were planned for the next few years were embargoed.

The proliferation of new ones is more relevant than the readiness of the U.S. legacy launch providers. This year will likely see the first flight of the Terran 1 3D-printed rocket, as well as the first flight of a new company, which is likely to be Rocket Lab.

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The government here has become more comfortable with the use of newer commercial launch providers for high-profile and sensitive missions. The time when the NRO or Pentagon couldn't put its latest spysat in the air is quickly coming to an end.

Even if we weren't flirting with a new Cold War with Russia, the world of launch has moved beyond the era in which the RD-180s were a sustainable option. It would be an overstatement to say it's a buggy maker refusing to sell to Ford, but there's certainly a sense that the market was already foreclosing on last-gen Russian space tech.

The investment of private and government money in a new generation of U.S.-designed and U.S.-launched rocketry and vehicles was a practical decision, even if the political climate did not improve. Russia may be looking for rides on American broomsticks a decade from now, as the fruits of that investment are becoming clear.