United Launch Alliance has chosen Aerojet Rocketdyne over Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture to provide the upper-stage rocket engine for its next-generation Vulcan launch vehicle.
But the suspense continues in the bigger contest to provide the more powerful first-stage engines.
Aerojet’s RL10 engine had been considered the favorite to power ULA’s Vulcan Centaur upper stage, which is to be used when the Vulcan makes its debut in 2020.
For more than 50 years, the hydrogen-fueled RL10 has been a mainstay of the Centaur, which came into play most recently last weekend when it powered NASA’s Mars InSight lander out of Earth orbit.
