Two of the world's leading producers of rocket engines have formed a joint venture to market a derivative of a Russian engine design for use in an American rocket.
     Pratt and Whitney (P&W) and NPO Energomash (NPO-EM) announced on February 4 the creation of RD AMROSS, LLC, a Florida-based joint venture. The new company will market a version of the RD-180 engine for the Atlas IIAR rocket.
     "We are extremely pleased by the formation of the joint venture, which will be critical in facilitating the RD-180's transition into service," said Douglas North, president of P&W's Space Propulsion business.
     NPO Energomash is Russia's number one producer of liquid-fueled engines. Pratt and Whitney has experience with both liquid- and solid-fueled engines, including refurbishing the solid-fuel rocket boosters for the space shuttle.
     The RD-180 is a derivative of the Russian RD-170 engine design. The 5.3-ton engines, which use kerosene and liquid oxygen as fuel and oxidizer, are capable on creating over 4.1 million newtons (930,000 lbs.) of thrust.
     Lockheed Martin plans to use the RD-180 engine in the first stage of its Atlas IIAR expendable booster. The booster, capable of delivering up to 3.8 tons to geosynchronous orbit, is scheduled for its first launch in late 1998.

A researcher at Purdue University has developed a theoretical technique for getting from one region of the solar system to another with a minimum of fuel by "surfing" from libration point to libration point.
     Kathleen Howell, a professor in the aeronautics and astronautics department at Purdue, has found that libration points -- specific points in space formed by the interaction of the gravitational fields of the Sun, planets, and moons -- have two-dimensional "surfaces" associated with them. Any object, such as a spacecraft, that reaches these surfaces will be guided into orbits around the libration points.
     "It's kind of like a marble rolling in a funnel," she said. "All I have to do is get on the sheet and I can 'ride' to a libration point. We can also 'shift' from one sheet to another to get to a destination, not necessarily a libration point."
     Howell said that these gravitational surfaces could be used to dramatically lower the cost of launching spacecraft to explore the solar system.
     "Instead of launching five individual spacecraft from Earth, which is expensive, we could launch five spacecraft all in one craft and send them to a particular libration point orbit," she said. "From there, it would take much less fuel to send each craft off in a different direction, to other libration point orbits or possibly to other planets."
     Libration points are already used by some spacecraft, such as the SOHO and WIND spacecraft, which use the L1 point between the Earth and the Sun to provide a stable location to monitor the Sun and the Earth's magnetic field.

Teledesic, the company partially owned by Bill Gates that plans to create a giant network of communications satellites, is reported looking at using converted Russian ICBMs to launch some of its satellites.
     Teledesic is looking at the Dnepr, a converted SS-18 ICBM, to launch as many as 200 of its over 900 satellites over the next several years.
     The Dnepr is a joint effort of NPO Yuzhnoye, a Ukrainian aerospace firm, and the Russian company Askond. The joint effort has the support of the Russian and Ukranian governments.
     Teledesic, based in Washington state, plans to launch over 900 satellites into low-Earth orbit to provide worldwide high-speed data communication to any point on Earth, starting by early next decade. The company is one-third owned by Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, with cellular phone magnate Craig McCaw owning another third.
     In recent months Teledesic has been investigating a number of launch options, including the possibility of using Indian rockets to launch some of the their satellites.