Modern liquid-propellant rocket engines made by NPO Energomash named after academician V.P. Glushko. Current status of programs and future prospects (to mark the 110th anniversary of academician V.P. Glushko)

The paper reviews the current status of development programs for high-power Liquid-Propellant Rocket Engines (LPRE) at NPO Energomash. The history of NPO Energomash goes back to May 1929, when under the direction of V.P. Glushko a division was set up within the Gasdynamics Lab in Leningrad to develop rocket engines and rockets. For many years academician V.P. Glushko was the head of this company, he is the farther of our country’s liquid rocket propulsion engineering, outstanding scientist and designer, one of pioneers of rocket and space technology, general designer of Energia-Buran system. It was for the superheavy launch vehicle Energia that the world’s most powerful LPRE RD-170 were developed and became the basis for developing at NPO Energomash a large family of oxygen-kerosene LPRE. The paper presents a summary of the results of the program to develop and subsequently operate a family of oxygen-kerosene LPRE with afterburning of the oxidizing generator gas designed on the basis of LPRE RD-170/171 originally developed for launch vehicles Energia and Zenit. The paper provides key performance data for engines RD-170/171, RD-180, RD-191 and RD-181. It discusses the new challenge of developing the engine RD-171MV for launch vehicle Soyuz-5 and future prospects for further operation and upgrading of the family of oxygen-kerosene LPRE of NPO Energomash.