Does Aerojet have any NK-33's left over, or am I remembering wrong? Antares has flown with them before, it should be a able to do it again.
Aerojet originally purchased 36 NK-33 engines, only ten were used on the Antares launches (and IIRC, a couple were lost during test fires) , so they should still has the remaining NK-33 engines in their possession, but they won't be able to use them. The Antares was redesigned for the RD-181 engines, as the RD-181 has significantly more thrust than the AJ-26.
Unlike ULA and the Atlas V, where only the engines are foreign, I think the complete Antares first stage is built in Ukraine. So AFAIK, NG is not currently set up to build them in the US even if they had engines available.
Does Aerojet have any NK-33's left over, or am I remembering wrong? Antares has flown with them before, it should be a able to do it again.
Aerojet once powered the Antares with the AJ26, a modified NK-33, but after a failed Antares 100 launch in October 2014, it had the engine for subsequent Antares rockets changed to the RD-181, a derivative of the RD-191. Maybe Aerojet used up all the NK-33s for the Antares rocket, because the NK-33 is an old rocket engine, and the Soyuz 2.1v remains the only SLV in service to use the NK-33.
Does Aerojet have any NK-33's left over, or am I remembering wrong? Antares has flown with them before, it should be a able to do it again.
Aerojet once powered the Antares with the AJ26, a modified NK-33, but after a failed Antares 100 launch in October 2014, it had the engine for subsequent Antares rockets changed to the RD-181, a derivative of the RD-191. Maybe Aerojet used up all the NK-33s for the Antares rocket, because the NK-33 is an old rocket engine, and the Soyuz 2.1v remains the only SLV in service to use the NK-33.
They also found some deadly flaw in the NK-33 turbopump, can't remember the exact detail but it was bad enough to motivate the shift to the present engine.
Does Aerojet have any NK-33's left over, or am I remembering wrong? Antares has flown with them before, it should be a able to do it again.
Aerojet once powered the Antares with the AJ26, a modified NK-33, but after a failed Antares 100 launch in October 2014, it had the engine for subsequent Antares rockets changed to the RD-181, a derivative of the RD-191. Maybe Aerojet used up all the NK-33s for the Antares rocket, because the NK-33 is an old rocket engine, and the Soyuz 2.1v remains the only SLV in service to use the NK-33.
They also found some deadly flaw in the NK-33 turbopump, can't remember the exact detail but it was bad enough to motivate the shift to the present engine.
They were old engines that weren't stored in controlled environment. Exposed to 30yrs of Russian summer and winter temperature swings. Don't think design was flawed.
Sent from my SM-A528B using Tapatalk
They also found some deadly flaw in the NK-33 turbopump, can't remember the exact detail but it was bad enough to motivate the shift to the present engine.
Yes, there were several possible causes of the engine failure. None of them had to do with the age of engine.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/11/01/two-antares-failure-probes-produce-different-results/"An accident investigation board led by Orbital ATK — the Antares rocket’s developer and operator — singled out a manufacturing defect in the turbine housing bearing bore of the liquid oxygen turbopump of Engine No. 1, also known as Engine E15, on the Antares booster as the failure’s most probable cause."
...
"The summary of NASA’s investigation results said that the designs of the engine’s hydraulic balance assembly and thrust bearings “have several intricacies and sensitivities that make it difficult to reliably manage bearing loads. As a result, this area of the turbopump is vulnerable to oxygen fire and failures.”