It is expected that the new Antares 330 rocket will be completely American
NEW YORK, August 9. /tass/. The American corporation Northrop Grumman has signed an agreement with the American company Firefly Aerospace with the aim of upgrading the first stage of the Antares rocket and replacing Russian engines with American ones on it. This is stated in a message published on Monday by Northrop Grumman.
It is expected that the new Antares 330 rocket will be completely American. It is supposed to use Miranda engines manufactured by Firefly Aerospace. The timing of the creation of a new rocket, and even more so its tests and possible launches, are not called. The cost of the contract was not disclosed.
On March 3, the ex-head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel about the decision to stop all deliveries of rocket engines to the United States by NPO Energomash, as well as about the refusal to carry out maintenance of unused products left by the American side. It was about RD-180 and RD-181 engines for Atlas V and Antares launch vehicles, respectively.
Firefly Space Systems was founded in 2014 by its current CEO Thomas Markusik. After bankruptcy in 2017, the company was acquired by the firm of Ukrainian entrepreneur Maxim Polyakov, after which it was renamed Firefly Aerospace. The company is headquartered in Austin (Texas). In 2021, Firefly Aerospace made an unsuccessful launch of its own Alpha launch vehicle - it exploded a few minutes after launch.
