Analysis

Space Is Booming, America’s Next Heavy-Lift Rocket Should Reflect That

Published
By Todd Harrison, Andrew Hunter, Kaitlyn Johnson, Thomas G. Roberts, Evan Linck
rocket taking off from launch pad
Photo Credit: United Launch Alliance via U.S. Air Force
The Russian RD-180 rocket engine has been an integral part of the U.S. military’s space launch capabilities since the 1990s. The RD-180 was chosen for the Atlas V because it was an advanced rocket engine with unmatched technical capabilities. The decision to use the RD-180 was influenced by many other non-technical factors as well, such as the United States’ geopolitical goal of easing the former Soviet Union’s transition from communism and U.S. industry’s desire to remain competitive in the global launch market. And despite the EELV program’s cost overruns and program restructurings…

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About the Authors

Todd Harrison is VP of Research at Meta Aerospace and the former director of the Aerospace Security Project and Defense Budget Analysis at CSIS. As a senior fellow in the International Security Program, he led the Center’s efforts to provide in-depth, nonpartisan research and analysis of space security, air power, and defense funding issues.

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Andrew Hunter is a senior fellow in the International Security Program and director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at CSIS. He focuses on issues affecting the industrial base, including emerging technologies, sequestration, acquisition policy, and industrial policy.

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Kaitlyn Johnson is deputy director and fellow of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Ms. Johnson supports the team’s strategic planning and research agenda. Her research specializes in topics such as space security, military space systems, and commercial and civil space policy. Ms. Johnson has written on national security space reorganization, threats against space assets, the commercialization of space, escalation and deterrence dynamics, and defense acquisition trends. She is also a cohost of the CSIS podcast Tech Unmanned, which features guests with both policy expertise and technical expertise in order to break through the national security jargon and technology hand-waving to get to the core of the technical realities of these emerging capabilities, benefits to development, and the barriers to success. Ms. Johnson holds an MA from American University in U.S. foreign policy and national security studies, with a concentration in defense and space security, and a BS from the Georgia Institute of Technology in international affairs.

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Thomas G. Roberts is an adjunct fellow with the CSIS Aerospace Security Project and a graduate research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Astrodynamics, Space Robotics, and Controls Laboratory. He is also a Ph.D. student in the Institute’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His research interests include civil and commercial space policy, space security, and orbital mechanics.

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Evan Linck is a former research intern for the Aerospace Security Project at CSIS in 2016. His research interests center on the intersection of science, space, public policy, education, and international affairs.

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