The U.S. Department of defense appealed to the Senate a petition to mitigate penalties that prohibit American companies to buy Russian rocket engines RD-180.

The RD-180 used in the first stage of American Atlas missile and as long as the U.S. industry does not produce analogues. Before Congress because of the events around Ukraine banned the use of RD-180 for new contracts for government launches, and has allocated 220 million dollars to help in the creation of new American engines.

Speaking on Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on armed services, the head of the air force Deborah Lee James made the proposal to amend the law amendment to purchase Russia-ordered even before the events in Crimea, but until not paid engines. In her expressions, the amendments " will allow you to keep the competitive launches missiles Atlas, until will not be designed alternative (American) engines ".

As lawyers believe the Pentagon, we can talk about the purchase of 18 first ordered from Russia engines.

Senator John Sidney McCain, the famous anti-Russian rhetoric, said, " in the interests of the USA to subsidize the Russian defense industry, taking into account the behavior of Russia." No. This is unfortunate, but guaranteed access to space (US version) is much more important ", - said the representative of the Pentagon, which quoted the Air Force Times.

It is noteworthy that McCain has previously unsuccessfully criticized the leadership of the air forces of the USA, which according to his vision, "wasted" spent a year in an attempt to abandon dependence on Russian rocket engines.

in March, the US announced that it would hold a tender for space launches in connection with the planned abandonment of the Russian rocket engines RD-180. The competition will be conducted in 28 starts, which is expected to produce in the years 2020-2024.


Western countries since March 2014 several times already imposed penalties because Russia's position on Ukraine. The last case of the use of such practices were the limits imposed in March 2015, when expanded sanctions List Australia.

The list of Russian citizens and organizations who have fallen under the punishment - in the material of the Fins news

sections: Politics