History
The N-1 launcher originally used NK-15 engines for its first stage, and a high-altitude modification (NK-15V) in its second stage. After four consecutive launch failures and no successes, the project was cancelled. While other aspects of the vehicle were being modified or redesigned, Kuznetsov improved his contributions into the NK-33 and NK-43, respectively. The 2nd-generation vehicle was to be called the N-1F. By this point the Moon race was long lost, and the Soviet space program was looking to the Energia as its heavy launcher. No N-1F ever reached the launch pad.
When the N-1 program was shut down, all work on the project was ordered destroyed. A bureaucrat instead took the engines, worth millions of dollars each, and stored them in a warehouse. Word of the engines eventually spread to America. Nearly thirty years after they were built, disbelieving rocket engineers were led to the warehouse. Later, one of the engines was taken to America, and the precise specification of the engine was demonstrated on a test stand.
About 150 engines survived, and in the mid-1990s, Russia sold 36 engines to Aerojet General for $1.1 million each. This company also acquired a license for the production of new engines. Aerojet has modified and renamed the updated NK-33 and NK-43 to AJ26-58 and AJ26-59, respectively.
Kistler Aerospace, later called Rocketplane Kistler (RpK), designed their K-1 rocket around three NK-33s and an NK-43. On August 18, 2006, NASA announced that RpK had been chosen to develop Commercial Orbital Transportation Services for the International Space Station. The plan called for demonstration flights between 2008 and 2010. RpK would have received up to $207 million if they met all NASA milestones, but on September 7, 2007, NASA issued a default letter warning that it would terminate the COTS agreement with Rocketplane Kistler in 30 days because RpK had not met several contract milestones.
Proposals existed to retrofit the Soyuz launcher with NK-33s. Either one engine would replace the Soyuz's central RD-108, or five NK-33s would replace the RD-108 and four booster RD-107s. The lower weight and greater efficiency would increase payload; the simpler design and use of surplus hardware might actually reduce cost.
Read more about this topic: NK-33
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