It was designed and produced in the Soviet Union by NPO Energomash for use with the Energia launch vehicle.

[3][5] Several Soviet and Russian rocket engines use the approach of clustering small combustion chambers around a single turbine and pump.

[6] Building on the technology from the Energia's liquid fuel booster the Zenit was developed, which uses a RD-170 variant, the RD-171.

This engine had also been chosen to be the main propulsion system for the first stage of the now cancelled Russian Rus-M rocket.

[14] According to the information, new and proposed variants will be marked as: In 2017, Director General of RKK Energia Vladimir Solntsev referred to a "simplified" and "cheaper" version of the RD-171 engine in connection with the Soyuz-5 (Sunkar) project.