The company that handles all the US’s national security satellite launches has outlined audacious plans to end its reliance on Russian rocket engines within four years and slash the cost of launches by at least half.

United Launch Alliance said the first flight for the new rocket — to be called Vulcan — will be in 2019, the deadline that Congress had set the company to end its reliance on Russian RD180 rocket engines. The new rocket will save money partly by jettisoning its engines back to earth to be captured by helicopters and reused on future flights.

The new rocket — also known as the Next Generation Launch System — would eventually offer the US the capability to fly successive components of a spacecraft to be assembled in orbit, said Tory Bruno, ULA’s chief executive. It could then conduct an interplanetary mission, such as a flight to Mars.