| Country of origin | Ukraine |
|---|---|
| First flight | 2012-02-13 |
| Designer | Yuzhnoye Design Bureau |
| Manufacturer | Yuzhmash |
| Application | Upper Stage |
| Associated L/V | Vega |
| Predecessor | RD-869 |
| Status | In Production |
| Liquid-fuel engine | |
| Propellant | N2O4 / UDMH |
| Mixture ratio | 2.0 |
| Cycle | Pressure Fed |
| Configuration | |
| Chamber | 1 |
| Performance | |
| Thrust (vac.) | 2.452 kilonewtons (551 lbf) |
| Chamber pressure | 20.4 MPa (2,960 psi) |
| Isp (vac.) | 315.5 seconds |
| Burn time | up to 667s |
| Dimensions | |
| Dry weight | 15.93 kilograms (35.1 lb) |
| Used in | |
| AVUM | |
| References | |
| References | |
The RD-843 is a Ukrainian single nozzle liquid propellant rocket engine burning pressure-fed UDMH and nitrogen tetroxide. It is rated for up to 5 restarts, and can gimbal up to 10 degrees in each direction.
It was developed by Yuzhnoye Design Bureau for Avio and is manufactured by Yuzhmash. It uses the RD-869 thrust chamber, the old Soviet ICBM SS-18 Satan final stage engine from which it is evolved, and which was also designed by Yuzhnoye. The RD-843 ground test campaign included 74 tests, 140 ignitions, reaching a total of 8201 s, which is approximately 12 service lives on 4 engines. As of May 2015 it has been successfully used on four orbital launches.
It is currently used as the main engine of Vega's AVUM upper stage. Germany’s aerospace technology agency-DLR is understood to be keen to work with the Italians to develop a replacement for the RD-843.