The RD-253 ( russian: italic=yes, Раке́тный дви́гатель 253 , ''Rocket Engine 253'') and its later variants, the RD-275 and RD-275M, are

liquid-propellant rocket A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket utilizes a rocket engine that uses liquid propellants. Liquids are desirable because they have a reasonably high density and high specific impulse (''I''sp). This allows the volume of the propellant ta ...

engines An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...

developed in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

Energomash The Energomash Corporation (Cyrillic: "Энергомаш") was a Russian power engineering company. Energomash manufactures small cogeneration plants as well as a wide variety of components for the energy industry The energy industry is the to ...

. The engines are used on the first stage of the

Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...

launch vehicle and use an oxidizer-rich

staged combustion Staged combustion is a method used to reduce the emission of nitrogen oxides ( NOx) during combustion. There are two methods for staged combustion: air staged supply and fuel staged supply. Applications of staged combustion include boilers and ro ...

cycle to power the turbopumps. The engine burns

UDMH Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH; 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, НДМГ or codenamed Geptil) is a chemical compound with the formula H2NN(CH3)2 that is used as a rocket propellant. It is a colorless liquid, with a sharp, fishy, ammonia-like smell ...

/ N₂O₄, which are highly toxic but

hypergolic A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. T ...

and storable at room temperature, simplifying the engine's design.

History

Development of the RD-253 started in 1961. Preliminary investigations and development of the engine as well as its further production was performed under the guidance of

Valentin Glushko Valentin Petrovich Glushko (russian: Валенти́н Петро́вич Глушко́; uk, Валентин Петрович Глушко, Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko; born 2 September 1908 – 10 January 1989) was a Soviet engineer and the m ...

and finished in 1963. The RD-253 uses a

cycle for oxidizer-rich generator gas. It was used for the first time in July 1965 when six engines powered the first stage of the rocket. Development and production of RD-253 was a qualitative leap forward for rocketry of that time by achieving high levels of

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that ...

specific impulse Specific impulse (usually abbreviated ) is a measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine (a rocket using propellant or a jet engine using fuel) creates thrust. For engines whose reaction mass is only the fuel they carry, specific impulse is ...

and pressure in the

combustion chamber A combustion chamber is part of an internal combustion engine in which the fuel/air mix is burned. For steam engines, the term has also been used for an extension of the firebox which is used to allow a more complete combustion process. Intern ...

. This engine is one of the most reliable engines in the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...

and modern

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

. As every first stage of

Proton-K The Proton-K, also designated Proton 8K82K after its GRAU index or SL-12 after its model number, 8K82K, was a Russian, previously Soviet, carrier rocket derived from the earlier Proton. It was built by Khrunichev, and launched from sites 81 an ...

rockets used six RD-253 engines, the system played a pivotal role in

space mission Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in o ...

s when this rocket was chosen as carrier, including the following programs: "Luna", " Venera", "Mars probe", manned

orbital station A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space stati ...

s "Salyut", "

Mir ''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...

" and it supplied several principal modules for ISS. It is used widely also for heavy satellites launches. The last RD-253 rocket engine was used on Proton-K rocket and launched on March 30, 2012. Since the original development of the engine, several modifications were designed that weren't used in rockets. One of them was the RD-256 engine for which development stopped on experimental models. It wasn't used in flights and was designed for a cancelled vehicle. The modification marked RD-254 was supplied with extended nozzle for work in vacuum.

Current state and development

All rights to sell and employ the RD-253 for

rocket are held by

which produces it in Perm,

. The modification RD-275 (14D14) appeared as the result of development in 1987–1993 years with the purpose to achieve a more powerful version of the engine. Its 7.7% higher thrust was reached by raising pressure in the

and enabled to raise

payload Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...

mass to geostationary orbit (GEO) up to more than . The successful maiden flight of a

rocket with the new engine was completed in 1995.

started the development of next more powerful version of engine in 2001. It has 5.2% higher thrust and has the designation 14D14M (RD-275M). It was designed to allow the rocket to deliver more payload to GEO. In the period from 2002 to 2003 years some experimental work was completed with this version of the engine. It included four test firings of three experimental RD-275M with a total time of 735 s. In the middle of 2005 this engine went into production by government commission. First launch of

Proton-M The Proton-M, (Протон-М) GRAU index 8K82M or , is an expendable Russian heavy-lift launch vehicle derived from the Soviet-developed Proton. It is built by Khrunichev, and launched from sites 81 and 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Ka ...

with 14D14M engines is conducted July 7, 2007. The final version RD-275M is sometimes designated as RD-276 but through 2009 the name RD-275M (14D14M) was more common. Some sources points out the cost of production per engine as much as 1.5 million USD and sometimes calls some lower figures around 1 million USD per unit.

Versions

During the years there have been many versions of this engine: * RD-220: Initial proposal for the N-1 first stage. * RD-221: Initial proposal for the N-1 second stage. * RD-222 (

GRAU The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (), commonly referred to by its transliterated Russian acronym GRAU (), is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the ...

Index 11D41): Development program for the N-1 first stage. * RD-223 (

Index 11D42): Development program for the N-1 second stage. * RD-253 (

Index 11D43): Serial production version for the

(8K62) first stage. Was proposed for the N-1 first stage. * RD-253F (

Index 11D43F): Project for R-36M (15А14) first stage. * RD-254 (

Index 11D44): Project for

UR-700 The Universal Rocket or ''UR'' family of missiles and carrier rockets is a Russian, previously Soviet rocket family. Intended to allow the same technology to be used in all Soviet rockets, the UR is produced by the Khrunichev State Research and P ...

third stage and for

and N-1 second stages, it was a RD-253 high-altitude version. * RD-275 (

Index 14D14): Serial production for

first stage. RD-253 with increased thrust by 8%. * RD-275М AKA RD-276 (

Index 14D14М): Serial production for

first stage. Improved RD-275.

History

Current state and development

Versions

See also

References