Sad thing about the Starliner relying on a Russian RD-180 engine to get them of the ground.
“Sad thing about the Starliner relying on a Russian RD-180 engine to get them of the ground.”
There is only 16 Atlas V rockets left.ULA is burning through the last of it’s inventory. They discontinued the Atlas V as of 2021. The new Vulcan rocket uses the BE4 LOx/CH4 engine from Blue Origin. that is the direct replacement of the Atlas V it’s being human rated this year. So the long term launcher is using Jeff Bezo engines.
They used an Atlas V. It was a legacy series rocket going back to the Gemini days according to one article. Obviously there have been improvements since then.It is good old American tech and it was powerful enough to get starliner to the ISS. They went with what they knew that would work! Atlas V is mature tech!
oNLY UNTIL vULCAN IS IN WORKING ORDER. tHE aTLAS ROCKETS ARE DONE.