The fiscal 2016 omnibus budget bill lawmakers unveiled late Tuesday night will lift the ban on using Russian rocket engines for U.S. satellite launches.
Section 8048 of the more than 2,000-page bill states that awards for the country’s space launch program “may be made to a launch service provider competing with any certified launch vehicle in its inventory regardless of the country of origin of the rocket engine that will be used on its launch vehicle, in order to ensure robust competition and continued assured access to space.”
After the Russian invasion of Crimea, Congress banned U.S. space launch companies from using Russian-made RD-180 rockets in all launches after 2019. Of the two private contractors competing for the Pentagon’s space contracts, SpaceX has its own engine system made in America while United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, still relies on the Russian systems.
In November, United Launch Alliance pulled out of the bid for the next competition, saying it couldn’t come up with its own engine to meet that deadline. As a result, the Air Force asked Congress for more leeway while companies worked on an engine made in the U.S.
“We’re not at all sure we can get it done by the deadline which has been given to us by Congress,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said this month at a National Press Club luncheon. “I’ve got to make sure we can get to space because space is critically important to us. And so we’re trying to work this through with the Congress.”
Lifting the ban in this appropriations bill would put United Launch Alliance back in contention, increasing competition for space launches and likely getting the government a better deal, supporters say.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. and a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, had pressed hard for the ban to be lifted in the spending bill “to guarantee America’s access to space, eliminate a possible national security risk, and secure approximately 800 jobs in Alabama,” Shelby’s spokeswoman, Torrie Matous, said in a statement to the Montgomery Advisor.
On the other side of the debate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., wanted the prohibition on Russian rockets to stand, but had less influence on the appropriations fight despite his high ranking position as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter last week, McCain called ULA’s claims that it could not compete with the Russian engines “dubious,” noting that the company had five Russian rocket engines that it had procured prior to the Russian invasion of Crimea and chose to use them for non-national security launches that didn’t limit which engines could be used.
“Put simply, there was no compelling reason to re-purpose DoD engines other than to attempt to compel Congress to award the Russian military-industrial base by easing sanctions targeted at Vladimir Putin and his cronies,” McCain wrote.
