United Launch Alliance LLC, the joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing, has tapped government relations firm The Madison Group for lobbying issues related to aerospace.

The Centennial, CO-based private company, which provides spacecraft launch services for the government, seeks to assist Washington on issues related to sanctions against Russian rocket engine RD-180.

ULA has relied on that Russian-supplied rocket engine for its Atlas V system, which is used by the U.S. Air Force to launch national security satellites. After the U.S. and the European Union levied a series of widespread sanctions against Russia in 2014 over its military activities in Ukraine, however, Congress passed restrictions on the Department of Defense from purchasing Russian rocket engines for military use. In response, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin threatened an export ban of Russian-made rocket engines to the U.S. for military launches. Those threats never materialized, however, and Congress, upon learning of the potential shortage of launch vehicles that rely on RD-180 engines to take payloads into space, in December lifted its ban on the purchase of Russian engines.

That decision has been criticized by some politicians, notably Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who said a reversal of the Russian rocket ban, while simultaneously expecting European countries to remain steadfast in their sanctions against Russia, accounted for “the height of hypocrisy.”

McCain in January, along with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, (R-CA), introduced legislation to reinstate the ban on RD-180 engines from powering U.S. rockets for national security space launches.

The potential future unavailability of RD-180 engines, meanwhile, provoked the ULA to began an effort to phase out the Atlas V and develop a replacement launch vehicle. A successor rocket, The Vulcan, was unveiled last year. That system is currently under development and won’t see its first launch until at least 2019.

The ULA account will be managed by The Madison Group managing partner Robb Watters, who was formerly senior policy adviser to Rep. Frank Riggs (R-CA) and deputy chief of staff to Rep. Mark Neumann (R-WI); Marcus Mason, former chief of staff to Rep. Walter Tucker (D-CA) and chief of staff to Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA); and Rodney Emery, former chief of staff to Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) and associate administrator to the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs for the U.S. General Services Administration.