“The rhetoric about abandoning the Russian engines RD-180, was traced for a long time. At the same time, practice shows that you can scream anything, but you have to fly on something. The Americans tried to create an alternative to our engine, but in terms of their technical characteristics, the most powerful version of this engine was twice as inferior to its Russian counterpart, ”he said.
According to the expert, the Americans decided that it was unprofitable to abandon the Russian engine if they did not want to close their space programs.
“In America, they could not create an alternative. They decided of two evils, the first of which is associated with Russophobia, and the second with the desire to have an engine, chose the second, ”says Leonkov.
Earlier in the United States it was stated that deliveries to the country of the Russian RD-180 engine, which is used on the American Atlas-5 launch vehicle, will continue until at least 2023-2024.