WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - The Pentagon views public-private partnerships as best way to end U.S. reliance on Russian rocket engines, and plans to award contracts for such arrangements in fiscal 2017, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said in a letter made public on Wednesday.
Work told Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain it was unrealistic to transition completely away from the Russian RD-180 engines that power the Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, before 2021 or 2022.
That meant the department might still need to use the Russian engines for some launches, and could use sole-source allocation of some launches to ULA to ensure that the U.S. government maintained two viable sources of launch services, Work said.
Reporting by Andrea Shalal
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