Russia's cut off of rocket engines to the United States has become the focus of everyone's attention because of Director Rogozin's remark that "let them fly on brooms." It mainly involves R-180 and R-181 engines, used in the United States "Cosmos" 5 and "Antares" rockets, as for Musk SpaceX's "Falcon" series and "starships", in fact, it has nothing to do with Russia, they use the United States itself developed "Merlin" and "Raptor" engines.
R-181 ignition instant
R 180 rocket engine
Specifically, the R-180 is a liquid rocket engine developed on the basis of the R-170 developed by the Soviet Union for the "Energy" rocket, with a vacuum thrust of 423 tons, and both it and the R-180M are used in the United States "Cosmos" 5 carrier rocket, as the main engine of the first stage, in the form of a single engine. Its shrunken version of the RD-151, with a vacuum thrust reduction to 190 tons, is used on South Korea's Ro lao carrier rocket.
RD-180
The R-180 is undoubtedly the most powerful rocket engine in service today, and although the "Raptor" of the "Starship" has surpassed it, it has not yet officially entered service, and the number of actual battles is too small. You know, RD-180 has launched 97 units, the success rate is 100%, has never failed, very stable, which is one of the reasons why the United States had to buy rocket engines from Russia in the first place.
At the same time, the "Antares" rocket used to launch the "Cygnus" cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station, its first-stage dual main engine also uses R-181 engines, and R-181 is actually based on R-170 "one-by-four", and the two sides have even cooperated for more than 30 years.
R-181 rocket engine
Now, in order to counter the comprehensive sanctions of the West, Russia has announced that it will cut off the supply of rocket engines to the United States, and the two rockets directly affected are the "Cosmic God" 5 and "Antares". For the "Cosmic God" 5, in fact, the situation is quite good, because it has stocked a bunch of RD-180 rocket engines, and Russia has only detained 24 of them, which is enough for a period of time.
The RD-180 is stocked quite high
Moreover, the United States has obtained a full set of production technology for the R-180 engine from Russia more than a decade ago, and has the ability to build it itself, and if it is really needed, it can still be continued. For example, on March 2, a "Cosmos" 5 carrier rocket with a 541 configuration was successfully launched without Russian technical support, sending a GOES-T meteorological satellite into a predetermined orbit.
The latest launch of Cosmic Gods 5
For the "Antares" rocket, it may be a bit miserable, because its agreement with Russia is to reduce the inventory, build 1 stage and send 2 engines, and the design and manufacture of its first stage rocket is the Southern Machinery Factory of Ukraine and several local companies, so after the Russian supply is cut off, the situation is very unoptimistic.
The orbital science company to which the "Antalis" rocket belongs has signed a contract with NASA for the launch of several hundred million cargo spacecraft, and plans to use the "Antales" rocket to carry the "Cygnus" and deliver to the International Space Station. In this way, the "Cygnus" cargo spacecraft is useless, and there is no support from the Russian "Progress" cargo spacecraft, and the only cargo mission in the western part of the International Space Station relies on Musk SpaceX's cargo "Dragon" spacecraft, musk may wake up laughing in his dreams.
The Antares rocket launches the Cygnus spacecraft
Cygnus spaceship
Whether it is Russia or the United States, sanctions and embargoes in space and rocketry are all moves of "killing eight hundred enemies and losing a thousand." Compared with the Us rockets, which are inseparable from Russian engines, the International Space Station is inseparable from Russia's modules and spacecraft, and Russia's spacecraft manufacturing is also inseparable from the West. I hope that the disputes on the ground will not touch the common space field of mankind. Only when all countries work together can mankind make good use of space.