International cooperation and partnership yielding nearly one million pounds of thrust for the Atlas V fleet.
Packing nearly one million pounds of thrust in a total propulsion system, the RD-180 engine delivers a 10 percent performance increase over Lox/RP booster engines. This reusable kerosene (hydrocarbon)-fueled engine has been flight-proven on the United Launch Alliance Atlas III and Atlas V launch vehicles.
The RD-180 is a two-chamber derivative of the four-chamber RD-170 that was used on Russian vehicles and human-rated in Russia.
It provides an environmentally-clean operation, while featuring an integrated-propulsion package with hydraulics for control-valve actuation and thrust-vector gimbaling, pneumatics for valve actuation and system purging, and a thrust frame to distribute loads.
The RD-180 booster engine is offered by RD AMROSS, a partnership between the world's two premier propulsion companies—Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of the U.S. and NPO Energomash of Russia.