Elon Musk Russia’s rocket engineering, engines ‘excellent’
Elon Musk, the CEO of US private aerospace manufacturer Spacex, called Russia’s rocket engineering ‘excellent’ and said the country’s rocket engines are the best currently flying, also suggesting that the reusable version of Russia’s Angara rocket would be ‘great’.
“Russia has excellent rocket engineering & best engine currently flying. Reusable version of their new Angara rocket would be great,” Musk wrote on Twitter on Thursday, sputniknews.com reported.
Musk’s tweet was his reaction an article, published by the Ars Technica technology news outlet, about Russia’s reaction to the recent launch of Spacex-manufactured Crew Dragon vehicle and its docking to the International Space Station (ISS).
The Spacex CEO earlier commented on the design of Russia’s RD180 liquid-fueled rocket engine, used to power the first stage of the US Atlas V rocket.
The uncrewed mission of Crew Dragon capsule, built by Spacex with the support of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), docked to the ISS over the weekend, marking the first time a US spacecraft had reached the orbital station since the Space Shuttle Program was shut in 2011.
The Angara family of environmentally-friendly vehicles is designed to carry anywhere between two tons and 40 tons into low Earth orbit. It was the first orbit-capable rocket developed by Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union to replace the older Proton-m rockets.
Last August, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, said that the third launch of the Russian Angara rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome for the Defense Ministry would be held in 2019.