SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft are headed back to the launch pad, kicking off the second astronaut mission for SpaceX in just one month. On board will be four professional astronauts, destined for the International Space Station, including the first Black woman to join the ISS crew.
“Today we have made a decision to halt the deliveries of rocket engines produced by NPO Energomash to the United States,” Rogozin said, according to the Russian news site Tass. “Let me remind you that these deliveries had been quite intensive somewhere since the mid-1990s,” Rogozin said.
Tass reported that the ban will apply to RD-180 engines that power US-based United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V rockets.
ULA’s CEO, Tory Bruno, however said via Twitter that ULA has already taken delivery of the RD-180s it needs in the near-term, and he does not foresee the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine having any impact on ULA’s operations.
ULA, a private space transport company, is in the process of abandoning its line of Atlas rockets in favor of a new line of rockets, called Vulcan, that will use engines made by Jeff Bezos’ US-based rocket company Blue Origin. It’s not clear when that rocket will be ready to fly.