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NEWS

Amazon founder wants to wean U.S. off Russian rocket engine

Ledyard King
FLORIDA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who revolutionized how the world shops, now wants to help America end its dependence on Russian rocket engines.

Bezos' start-up space firm, Blue Origin, announced Wednesday it's been hired by Aerospace titan United Launch Alliance to develop a new liquid-fueled rocket engine that will help propel satellites into orbit.

ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin that flies Atlas and Delta rockets, has successfully launched more than 80 satellites, including ones that provide military intelligence, enable GPS navigation, and provide meteorological science to weather forecasters.

A model of the BE-4 engine Blue Origin is building.

But most of those payloads have been carried by Atlas rockets powered by the RD-180, a reliable, kerosene-burning engine made in Russia. A top Russian official warned earlier this year his country would stop selling the engine to ULA in the wake of sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration after the annexation of Crimea and unrest in Ukraine.

That made finding a U.S. alternative imperative. ULA, after holding a competition, settled on Blue Origin and its BE-4 engine.

"It's kind of the best of both worlds. We have their innovative entrepreneurship together with ULA's solid track record of success, certainty and reliability," ULA CEO Tory Bruno said during a news conference with Bezos at the National Press Club. "It's like having your cake and eating it too."

The announcement to use a U.S.-made engine comes a day after NASA announced that Boeing and SpaceX had won a competition to ferry crews to the International Space Station on private space taxis by 2017.

That also will eventually take business away from Russia. With the retirement of the space shuttle program, NASA pays Moscow about $70 million each time U.S. astronauts catch a ride to the orbiting lab aboard a Russian-made Soyuz.

United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno, left, and Blue Origin (and Amazon) founder Jeff Bezos discuss their cooperation. Blue Origin will develop a new rocket engine for ULA.

ULA's dependence on the Russian engine won't end overnight.

Bezos said the BE-4 engine has been in development for three years but won't be ready for use until 2018 while testing is conducted and certification completed. In the meantime, Boeing plans to fly its CST-100 capsule on an Atlas V, using the Russian engine.

The Air Force, which pays ULA to launch its military satellites, has a two-year supply of the RD-180s. That means the company will have to buy at least another two years' supply of the engines, assuming no setbacks in the BE-4 delivery schedule.

Bruno said he doesn't foresee a problem getting more Russian rocket engines, a sentiment echoed this summer by Air Force Gen. William Shelton, who headed the Air Force Space Command until his retirement last month.

Bezos called his company's BE-4 engine "a remarkable machine" that uses liquified natural gas, produces 550,00 pounds of thrust, is reusable, and has "very low" recurring and life-cycle costs.

"And it's built and tested and designed and engineered 100 percent in the United States," he said, sitting next to a three-foot model of the engine. The actual engine is 12 feet long.

Bruno would not disclose the cost of the contract but said it would offer "substantial" cost savings from the RD-180. He said ULA plans to use two BE-4 engines on each launch instead of the single RD-180, a change that will provide higher thrust levels and sharper performance.

Discussions about finding an American-made alternative to the RD-180 began more than 10 years ago. But the effort fizzled because there wasn't a pressing need, and the engine has proved reliable.

That changed when tensions between Moscow and Washington flared over Ukraine.

"It's a national priority," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, said at a July Senate hearing to discuss space-related issues.

"It's time for us to rise to the occasion and fix this situation ... Given that we have a vulnerability, it's time to close that hole."

Shelton told senators at the hearing there would be "serious national security implications" if Russia stops exporting the engine and the U.S. has no backup plan.

In response, Congress began to set aside money for an engine-development project. A Senate defense authorization bill includes $100 million for the project. A similar House bill includes $220 million.

Bezos, who ushered in a new era of online shopping, said that even without national security implications, space-related innovation is necessary.

"It's pretty clear it's time for a 21st century booster engine," he said. "The great engines of the past were truly remarkable machines in their own right... but we have tools and capabilities, software simulations, computations and horsepower that the builders of those great engines could have only dreamed about."

Contact Ledyard King at lking@gannett.com