MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/. The US government has not yet given permission to Orbital Sciences LLC to purchase Russian-made RD-181M rocket engines, Spokesman for Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Vladimir Ustimenko said.

"Unfortunately, mistakes happen. So, there was an unfortunate typo in yesterday’s post, which said that Roscosmos had been allowed to export the new RD-181M engine to the United States. As for the sentence reading "the US government has approved a deal between the Energomash manufacturer (part of the Roscosmos state corporation) and the US company Orbital Sciences LLC," it was actually about the Russian government’s approval of the contract," Ustimenko wrote on his Telegram channel.

The Russian government earlier backed talks on a contract for the delivery of Russian-made RD-181M rocket engines produced by Energomash to the US company Orbital Sciences LLC. The relevant resolution signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin was posted on the government’s legal information web portal. According to the document, the contract can be signed if issues concerning the use of the results of intellectual activities related to efforts to develop the engine are settled with the Russian Defense Ministry and Roscosmos. The US company will also have to take measures to protect Russian technologies and guarantee that Antares carrier rockets equipped with Russian engines are not used for the launch of military space vehicles.