Orbital’s limited options

With heightened political tensions between the U.S. and Russia, the American government and the spaceflight industry wants to reduce space reliance on the Russian rocket engines that power a number of American private and military space launch vehicles. While Congress considers banning Russian launch technology, Orbital Sciences’ search for a new rocket engine demonstrates the difficulty of those type firms to wean themselves off Russian rocket hardware - or field American-made replacements. Orbital announced it would stop using the Russian AJ26 engine. But how will they replace it? With contract obligations to NASA and no obvious replacement option on the market, they may not have any choices. It can’t just go to the local hardware story and pick up cutting edge pieces of equipment. That’s a problem for the domestic rocket engine industry dominated by two non-competitive companies: Aerojet Rocketdyne, which produces liquid-fueled rocket engines, and Alliant Techsystems (ATK), whose expertise lies in solid-fuel rockets. ATK especially serves government clients that tend to push up the price of hardware beyond what the private space industry wants to pay. (Source: Fortune, 12/09/14) Centeral Mississippi Note: See previous story of potential merger.