The US Air Force on Friday said it is assessing what data rights it has to the Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance (ULA) after some companies expressed interest in swapping the rocket's Russian-built engine with a homegrown one. Assistant Air Force Secretary William LaPlante welcomed the initiative and said the government could also talk with ULA, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, about obtaining the rights to the rocket for others to use, given ULA's plans to develop a new rocket powered by a US engine.
The Pentagon is scrambling to comply with a US law that bans use after 2019 of the Russian RD-180 rocket engine that fuels the Atlas 5 rocket for military and intelligence satellite launches. Congress passed the law after Russia's annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine last year. LaPlante said he was glad that ULA and other companies were considering ways to continue using the Atlas 5 with a different engine, and lauded the initiative as "very thoughtful."
"I think that's the right thing to do," LaPlante said during a speech to the Air Force Association. He said the fate of the Atlas 5 rocket was "the heart of the issue" at the moment. Aerojet Rocketdyne and two other firms on Monday said they are exploring ways to obtain the Atlas 5 data rights, if ULA decides to stop using it, and equip it with the AR1 engine that Aerojet Rocketdyne is developing.
The group, which includes private research group Dynetics and a company run by former NASA administrator Michael Griffin, said it could also work with ULA on the project. However, ULA has said it has no intention of selling or transferring its rights to the launch vehicle. ULA announced plans last month to phase out the Atlas 5 rocket and develop a less expensive US-fueled rocket to use for satellite launches from 2022 or 2023.
The joint venture hopes to use a new engine being developed by Blue Origin, a company owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, but sees Aerojet Rocketdyne's AR1 engine as a backup. ULA on Friday said it was cutting its executive ranks by 30 percent in December through 12 voluntary layoffs, part of the company's broader effort to adapt to "an increasingly competitive business environment."