![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/635895121088263864-russian-rocket-engine-weig-1-jpg.jpg\")
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, shakes hands with Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall, the military’s chief weapons buyer before the start of a Jan. 27, 2016, hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Russian-made rockets for military satellites.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Susan Walsh\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n McCain and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., intended to introduce legislation Thursday to repeal a provision in law that they said allows the unlimited acquisition and use of RD-180 engines, which are made by NPO Energomash. The manufacturer is owned primarily by the Russian government and controlled by several of Putin’s closest confidants, according to the lawmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n United Launch Alliance is under contract with the\u00a0Air\u00a0Force\u00a0to launch\u00a0military\u00a0and spy satellites. The purchases effectively reward Putin’s inner circle even as Washington continues to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea region, its continued support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, and other hostile actions, the lawmakers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yury Melnik, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington, said Russia considers congressional discussions about the RD-180 “an internal U.S. matter” and would not comment on “specific remarks by different lawmakers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n United Launch Alliance spokeswoman Jessica Rye said the company had no comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The debate over the Russian equipment also illustrates a longstanding tension between congressional committees that have similar yet distinct responsibilities. McCain’s panel is an authorization committee that writes defense policy and approves annual\u00a0military\u00a0spending levels. But the appropriations committees actually allot the money, and their actions can occasionally contradict what the authorizers decided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During a December floor speech, McCain said Shelby and Durbin, both senior members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, reversed a restriction on buying the engines in what McCain called a “triumph of pork-barrel parochialism.” Their provision was added \u2014 “in secret, with no debate,” McCain said \u2014 to a $1.1 trillion government-wide spending bill passed by Congress late last year and signed into law by President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n United Launch Alliance, which uses the RD-180s on its Atlas V launch vehicle, has manufacturing facilities in Decatur, Alabama. Defense industry giants Boeing, based in Chicago, and Lockheed Martin formed United Launch Alliance as a joint venture. Shelby, who faces a GOP primary challenge, helped craft the spending bill but then ended up voting against it because the bill didn’t tighten the vetting process for Syrian refugees seeking to enter the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the past two years, McCain said, his committee supported measures also approved by Congress that prohibited the Russian engines but allowed a small number to be used during the transition period if the engines were fully paid for before Feb. 1, 2014 \u2014 just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Durbin said nothing was done in secret. He said Defense Department officials told him and other lawmakers that excluding the Russian engines so quickly could leave the\u00a0Air\u00a0Force\u00a0short of all the rockets needed to launch satellites. Durbin also said it prevents United Launch Alliance from bidding on\u00a0military\u00a0work, leaving the company SpaceX as the sole supplier for the launches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The problem is the only way ULA can compete right now is with a rocket engine made in Russia,” Durbin said. “I don’t want to give Putin a break on anything.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n SpaceX, a rocket and spacecraft manufacturing company, is based in Hawthorne, California, McCarthy’s home state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON \u2014 Senior\u00a0Pentagon\u00a0officials on Wednesday sought to defend the use of Russian-made rocket engines to send U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1124],"class_list":["post-62163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"VVZSHOV375CFZJRHYFXILNWK4M","arc_canonical_url":"\/2016\/01\/27\/pentagon-defends-use-of-russian-engines-to-launch-satellites\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n