may 16 from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral in the interests of the air force (USAF), the United States should start heavy rocket Atlas 5 first stage of which is installed the engine RD-180 manufactured by the Russian research and production Association “Energomash”, according to Spaceflight Now.
the Media should bring into orbit reusable space vehicle X-37B, which Roscosmos is seen as “weapons of mass destruction”. “This will be the seventh flight of the variant of the Atlas 5-501 and 84-th launch of a rocket Atlas 5 overall in 2002”, — the newspaper notes.
Earlier in April, the General Director of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said that the Corporation will not unite with SpaceX, since the latter is a contractor for the Pentagon. Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of cosmonautics named after Tsiolkovsky Andrew, son of Jonas, commenting on this statement the official said that “Roscosmos” sells in the USA rocket engines, which are used in missiles, exempting American military spacecraft.
In October 2018 Rogozin said that X-37B could be a weapon of mass destruction. “We, therefore, shall avoid any public statements, but understand that this can be, and it is likely that weapons of mass destruction, if not God forbid, it will be placed in space, it can plan from the top” — said the official.
In January 2018, the General Director of “Energomash” Igor Arbuzov acknowledged that his company is in a strong financial dependence on the us orders, in particular, the main part of the company’s revenue is generated from deliveries of RD-180 and RD-181 in the United States.
In may 2016 interviewed by the website Space.com experts said that the mini-Shuttle X-37B is designed to practice destroying satellites, and one of its objectives is to test the economic efficiency of such actions compared to the missiles of liquidation.
work on the creation of the X-37 began in 1999 through the joint efforts of NASA and Boeing. It was assumed that the reusable spacecraft will be used for the repair of near-earth satellites at altitudes up to about 700 kilometers. However, in 2004, the programme was kept secret and given to the Agency for defense advanced research projects Pentagon. Since then, the budget associated with the Boeing X-37, was classified. At the disposal of the U.S. air force is considered, there are two Boeing X-37.
