KB Energomash/OZEM

KB Energomash, situated in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, was responsible for the design of the RD-170 engines of the Blok-A strap-on boosters. The bureau originated as OKB-456 in 1946 and was headed from the beginning by Valentin P. Glushko, who had begun his career as a rocket engine designer at the Gas Dynamics Laboratory in Leningrad in 1929. OKB-456 developed all the engines for the Soviet Union’s early ballistic missiles and derived space launch vehicles. In January 1967 OKB-456 was renamed KB Energomash (KBEM). In May 1974 it was united with the old Korolyov bureau (then named TsKBEM) to form the giant conglomerate NPO Energiya. While Glushko became the new head of Korolyov’s former empire, he appointed Viktor P. Radovskiy as chief designer of the Energomash subdivision. On 19 January 1990, one year after Glushko’s death, Energomash again separated from NPO Energiya and

became known as NPO Energomash. The following year Radovskiy was replaced by Boris I. Katorgin, who led the organization until 2005.

KB Energomash had a so-called “Experimental Factory”, originally known as “Experimental Factory 456” and renamed OZEM in 1967. It produced test models and the first flightworthy versions of new rocket engines. However, since the factory’s production capabilities were relatively limited, serial production of engines was usually farmed out to other organizations. Being the most complex engines designed yet, the RD-170 and its Zenit cousin (the RD-171) were no exception. Even for the experimental engines the manufacture of the combustion chamber was entrusted to the “Metallist” factory in Kuybyshev, which had already built combustion chambers for the N-1 rocket. The production of the chambers was overseen by the “Volga Branch’’ of Energomash in Kuybyshev.

In 1978 it was decided that serial production of the RD-170 and RD-171 would eventually be transferred to PO Polyot in the Siberian city of Omsk, which until then had specialized in building small satellites and the 65S3/Kosmos-3M launch vehicle. Polyot’s task was dual. It delivered components to the KB Energomash factory for the engines manufactured there and at the same time produced complete engines itself. PO Polyot’s first RD-170 rolled off the assembly line in 1983 and during that same year KB Energomash set up a branch in Omsk, mainly to produce the blueprints necessary for serial production of the engines. Between 1983 and 1992 PO Polyot manufactured eleven RD-170 and about forty RD-171 engines. While many of those were used in test firings, none of them was ever completely installed on an Energiya or Zenit rocket. However, virtually all individual components of these engines were later used in the assembly of RD-171 engines for the Sea Launch version of Zenit. Energomash’s Experimental Factory produced its last RD-170 in 1990. Its director during the Buran years was Stanislav P. Bogdanovskiy (1968-1992) [4].