Fire at rocket engine plant near Perm could be a disaster for Russia, experts say

This event may enhance the effect of the damage to the Progress RCC, Defense Express believes.

The fire at the Proton-PM enterprise near the city of Perm in Russia , which occurred on the morning of September 2, may have much more serious consequences for the Russian space industry than it seems at first glance, experts at Defense Express believe .

In their opinion, the incident could become a real disaster for the Russians and will intensify the effect of the destruction of the Progress rocket launch center by FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles.

As experts said, the Proton-PM plant produces components for aircraft engines for government aircraft Il-96, Tu-214, military transport aircraft Il-76MD-90A, civil passenger aircraft MS-21 and SJ-100, as well as liquid jet engines RD-191 and RD-191M for space rockets of the Angara family.

“And the most important thing to pay attention to here is the RD-191 and RD-191M liquid jet engines. Previously, individual elements of these engines were produced at the enterprise’s facilities in the city of Perm itself, and the final assembly and production of other elements was carried out by the Energomash enterprise in Khimki near Moscow. However, in order to expand production, Proton-PM built a new production site in Novye Lyady, where the full production cycle of the RD-191 and RD-191M engines is to be carried out,” the material says.Read also:

Defense Express emphasized that, judging by the available footage, the fire broke out at the site in Novy Lyady, where a new large production workshop was burning. According to them, despite the fact that the full production cycle is planned to be launched only in 2027, certain engine elements are already being produced there.

“A large amount of various new expensive equipment, including machine tools, test stands, etc., has already been placed inside. Moreover, some of them, judging by previous reports, were transported from the main Proton-PM site in the city of Perm,” the experts write.

Expensive equipment could burn out

They assumed that part of this equipment could have burned in the fire, since the fire spread over a fairly large area, although there was no talk of complete destruction of the new workshop along with the equipment.

“Because of this, production at this production site may stop for a certain time. And the destruction of part of the equipment and workshop will likely further delay the start of the full production cycle, which has already been postponed for more than one year,” Defense Express believes.

According to experts, problems with the production of the RD-191 and RD-191M engines could seriously affect the production and, accordingly, the number of launches of the Angara family of launch vehicles, and for the Russians “this could be a real disaster.”

The point is, they recalled, that on the night of August 15, the Defense Forces struck the Progress RCC enterprise, which produced the main Russian launch vehicles – Soyuz-2. In particular, the final assembly shop was actually destroyed. As analysts suggest, the production of Soyuz-2 rockets was probably stopped, which will leave the Russian Federation without military space programs, flights to the ISS, and manned cosmonautics in general.

It is noted that, in addition to Soyuz-2, the Russians also have Proton-M and the already mentioned Angara family of rockets among their launch vehicles. However, Proton-M launch vehicles are no longer being produced, and now the Russians are launching their remnants, and in turn, Angara may now have problems with the production of engines for them, experts suggest.

All this is important, in their opinion, not only because the Russians can significantly reduce the number of space launches, but also because it will hinder the deployment of the Russian analogue of Starlink from Bureau-1440. After all, previously the satellites of this group were launched on Soyuz-2.1B rockets, and after the destruction of the plant that produced them, the Angara series rockets were considered as a possible replacement.

(c)UNIAN 2026