The RD-170 () is the world's most powerful and heaviest liquid-fuel

rocket engine A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed Jet (fluid), jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stor ...

. It was designed and produced in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

NPO Energomash NPO Energomash "V. P. Glushko" is a major Russian rocket engine manufacturer. The company primarily develops and produces Liquid rocket engine, liquid propellant rocket engines. Energomash originates from the OKB, Soviet design bureau OKB-456, w ...

for use with the Energia launch vehicle. The engine burns

kerosene Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustibility, combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in Aviation fuel, aviation as well as households. Its name derives from the Greek (''kērós'') meaning " ...

fuel and

LOX Lox is a fillet of brined salmon, which may be smoked. Lox is frequently served on a bagel with cream cheese, and often garnished with tomato, onion, cucumber, and capers. Etymology The American English word ''lox'' is a borrowing of Yiddi ...

oxidizer in four

combustion chamber A combustion chamber is part of an internal combustion engine in which the air–fuel ratio, fuel/air mix is burned. For steam engines, the term has also been used for an extension of the Firebox (steam engine), firebox which is used to allow a mo ...

s, all supplied by one single-shaft, single-turbine

turbopump A turbopump is a fluid pump with two main components: a rotodynamic pump and a driving gas turbine, usually both mounted on the same shaft, or sometimes geared together. They were initially developed in Germany in the early 1940s. The most co ...

rated at in a

staged combustion cycle The staged combustion cycle (sometimes known as topping cycle, preburner cycle, or closed cycle) is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. In the staged combustion cycle, propellant flows through multiple combustion chambers, and is th ...

Shared turbopump

Several Soviet and Russian rocket engines use the approach of clustering small combustion chambers around a single turbine and pump. During the early 1950s, many Soviet engine designers, including Valentin P. Glushko, faced problems of combustion instability while designing bigger thrust chambers. At that time, they solved the problem by using a cluster of smaller thrust chambers.

Variants

RD-170

The RD-170 engine featured four combustion chambers and was developed for use on the Energia launch vehicle – both the engine and the launch vehicle were in production only for a short time. Energia was launched twice. Each Energia vehicle had 4 boosters, each powered by one RD-170. The engine was designed for 10 reuses but tests showed they could stand up to 20 burns.RD-170
Astronautix. Mark Wade

RD-171

Building on the technology from the Energia's liquid fuel booster the Zenit was developed, which uses a RD-170 variant, the RD-171. While the RD-170 had nozzles which swiveled on two axes, the RD-171's nozzles only swivel on one axis. Models called the RD-172 and RD-173 were proposed, upgrades that would provide additional thrust, and the RD-173 proposal was finalized as the RD-171M upgrade in 2006.

RD-171MV

A modification of RD-171M being developed for the

Irtysh The Irtysh is a river in Russia, China, and Kazakhstan. It is the chief tributary of the Ob (river), Ob and is also the longest tributary in the world. The river's source lies in the Altai Mountains, Mongolian Altai in Dzungaria (the northern p ...

rocket. Unlike RD-171M it only uses Russian components and features a new control system. First test sample was manufactured in early 2019. Tests were reported to have been successfully completed in September 2021.

Dual-chamber derivative

The RD-180 uses only two combustion chambers instead of the four of the RD-170. The

RD-180 The RD-180 () is a rocket engine that was designed and built in Russia. It features a dual combustion chamber, dual-nozzle design and is fueled by a RP-1/ LOX mixture. The RD-180 is derived from the RD-170 line of rocket engines, which were use ...

used on the

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas (rocket family), Atlas launch vehicle family. It was developed by Lockheed Martin and has been operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA) since 2006. Primarily used to ...

replaced the three engines used on early Atlas rockets with a single engine and achieved significant payload and performance gains. This engine had also been chosen to be the main propulsion system for the first stage of the now cancelled Russian Rus-M rocket.

Single-chamber derivative

The RD-191 is a single-chamber version used in the Russian

Angara The Angara (; ) or Angar ( мүрэн) is a major river in Siberia, which traces a course through Russia's Irkutsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai. It drains out of Lake Baikal and is the headwater tributary of the Yenisey. It is long, and has ...

rocket. Variants of RD-191 include RD-151 in South Korean

Naro-1 Naro-1 (), previously designated the Korea Space Launch Vehicle or KSLV (also KSLV-1), was South Korea's first carrier rocket, and the first South Korean launch vehicle to achieve low Earth orbit, Earth orbit. On January 30, 2013, the third Naro ...

rocket, RD-181 in American

Orbital ATK Orbital ATK Inc. was an American aerospace manufacturer and defense industry company. It was formed in February 9, 2015 from the merger of Orbital Sciences Corporation and parts of Alliant Techsystems (ATK). Orbital ATK designed, built, and de ...

Antares Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius. It has the Bayer designation α Scorpii, which is Latinisation of names, Latinised to Alpha Scorpii. Often referred to as "the heart of the scorpion", Antares is flanked by ...

rocket, and the proposed RD-193 for the Soyuz-2-1v project.

Proposed variants

On 28 July 2011, NPO Energomash summarised the results of the work on Rus-M rocket engine and considered the possibility of construction several new variants of RD-170 family engines. According to the information, new and proposed variants will be marked as: * RD-180M for crewed

rocket (''Not required, current RD-180 meets crewed Atlas V requirements.'') * RD-180V for Rus-M rocket. * RD-175 with 9800 kN thrust for proposed Energia-K rocket. In 2017, Director General of RKK Energia Vladimir Solntsev referred to a "simplified" and "cheaper" version of the RD-171 engine in connection with the Soyuz-5 (Sunkar) project.

Specifications

* 4 combustion chambers, 4 nozzles * 1 set of turbines and pumps; turbine produces approximately 257,000 hp (192MW); equivalent to the power output of 3

nuclear-powered icebreaker A nuclear-powered icebreaker is an icebreaker with an Nuclear marine propulsion, onboard nuclear power plant that produces power for the vessel's propulsion system. Although more expensive to operate, nuclear-powered icebreakers provide a number ...

s * Ignition:

pyrophoric A substance is pyrophoric (from , , 'fire-bearing') if it ignites spontaneously in air at or below (for gases) or within 5 minutes after coming into contact with air (for liquids and solids). Examples are organolithium compounds and triethylb ...

start-up fuel capsule (

triethylaluminium Triethylaluminium is one of the simplest examples of an organoaluminium compound. Despite its name the compound has the formula Al2( C2H5)6 (abbreviated as Al2Et6 or TEA). This colorless liquid is pyrophoric. It is an industrially important comp ...

) * Vacuum thrust: * Vacuum ''I''_sp: * Sea-level ''I''_sp: * Weight: * Thrust-to-weight ratio: 82

References

External links

Manufacturer's Page ''(Archived)''External image
{{Russian and Soviet military designation sequences Rocket engines of the Soviet Union Rocket engines of Russia Rocket engines using kerosene propellant Soviet inventions Rocket engines using the staged combustion cycle Energomash rocket engines