“The US can do just fine without our rocket engines.” Ivan Moiseev on negotiations between Russia and the United States on the supply of RD-181M

The USA can do just fine without our engines. One of them, the contract for which has already ended – the most famous RD-180, had only 10% of their total tractive power. That is, Russian engines closed the issue of supplying the American market by only 10%, and they bought it from us mainly because of its cost.

This engine is very cheap for two reasons: firstly, the costs of its development remained in the USSR, and the engines themselves have already been written off. And secondly, we have very low salaries for engineers and workers who are engaged in them. Because of this, the engine turns out to be very cheap, and they buy it. But this contract has already ended.

The engine in question now – RD-181M – is half of the 180th engine, it is exactly half as powerful. So far, there is only a resolution of our government to start negotiations on the issue of new supplies, but not even the negotiations themselves. We are already supplying the RD-181 engine under an existing contract, and the United States is using them to deliver cargo to the ISS. Now we are talking about replacing the engine that we sell with another, with the letter M.

Our government allowed these negotiations to be held, the US government could do it too. some decision was received, but the negotiations themselves did not even begin.