Kirkland company had used same Russian rocket motor that caused Orbital Sciences explosionPuget Sound Business Journal
Steve Wilhelm Staff Writer- Jan 6, 2015, 9:35am PST
The Kistler K 1 rocket was to be powered by three NK-33 engines, the same type that failed to bring an October Orbital Sciences rocket to orbit. NASA photo - WikimediaKistler Aerospace, a Kirkland space launch company whose technology was ahead of its time when the company descended into bankruptcy in 2003, was planning to use the same former Soviet engines that caused the catastrophic Oct. 28 failure of an Orbital Sciences rocket launch.
Kistler is considered one of the first companies to take significant steps toward creating a reusable launch vehicle, the holy grail of the industry.
On Tuesday, SpaceX owner Elon Musk is set to demonstrate reusable launch technology by landing the first stage of a Falcon 9 space vehicle on a platform floating in the Atlantic Ocean. That rocket will be on a trip to the International Space Station, and Musk has estimated launch reusability could cut costs for future trips 100 fold.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin also has been attempting reusability with its New Shepard space vehicle, but has not yet been successful.
The engines used by competitor Orbital Sciences in its failed Oct. 28 launch – which were originally designed for the Soviet's unsuccessful manned moon launch program – have had many names over the years.
When Kistler was planning to use them in the late 1990s, the company called the engines NK-33s, and had bought them from Aerojet, a leading U.S. rocket engine builder. Aerojet got them from Russia, and upgraded them with new technology.
Orbital Sciences and Aerojet had renamed the engine the AJ-26, although it was still essentially the same engine, and may have been the same actual hardware.
An Orbital Sciences spokesperson did not return a call to clarify this point on Monday.
Now Aerojet has decided to use other than the former Soviet engines, since the problem with the Orbital Sciences explosion has been traced to engine failure.
For years we followed Kistler Aerospace, as the company attempted to develop a completely reusable launch system.
While the company was at the time well-respected in the industry, partly because most of its top leaders were former NASA engineers, it never accomplished a successful launch.
The Russian engines, which ran on kerosene and were considered robust and dependable, were a key part of the Kistler reusability plan.
Kistler filed for Chapter 11 in 2003, with nearly $600 million in debts to secured and unsecured creditors.
A significant cause was the loss was the collapse of several independent ventures to launch galaxies of "low-earth-orbit" communications satellites, projects that could have been the core of Kastler's customer base.
Aerojet had imported 46 surplus NK-33 and NK-34 engines from Russia for the Kistler program, but stopped work on them in 1998 when Kastler's money ran out, said Aero jet's Kistler program manager Deborah Rickman, in an interview at the time.
Investors had poured $900 million into the company, and it needed another $650 million at the time of its demise, according to a story we did then.
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