the head of the U.S. United Launch Alliance (ULA) Tory Bruno explained why his company uses for launches of the Russian rocket engines RD-180. This he said, responding to a question from a subscriber in his Twitter.
According to him, the US government at the end of the cold war asked to purchase the engines to “Russian scientists, the missile was not in North Korea and Iran”.
the RD-180 is produced in NPO Energomash (a subsidiary of the Russian space Agency) and is used in the first stage of Atlas-5. ULA, NASA provides services for space launch.
