Posted on 02/11/2019 9:00:02 PM PST by BenLurkin
The Raptor engine is designed to power the spaceship currently known as Starship as part of the rocket assembly currently known as Super Heavy (previously dubbed the BFR). The first Raptor test fire took place in September 2016, when the company was targeting an uncrewed Mars launch in 2018.
Three Raptor engines like this one are built in to the Starship Hopper, which has been under construction in Texas and which SpaceX will use to begin testing the rocket technology in real life.
SpaceX plans to assemble 31 Raptor engines into the Super Heavy rockets, with another seven Raptors on the Starship itself. The engines are fueled by a mix of liquid methane and liquid oxygen and are about twice as powerful as those aboard the Merlin engines currently flying in the company's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy engines.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Harvested from cow farts?
Who pays for all this?
Musk and the people hiring SpaceX to launch their satellites for them.
Actually the news is even better:
Raptor reached 268.9 bar today, exceeding prior record held by the awesome Russian RD-180. Great work by @SpaceX engine/test team!
Thanks BenLurkin.
From August 2018: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/cronyism_in_orbit.html
Defense bills, like those related to agriculture and manufacturing, tend to be filled with special carve-outs and privileges for individual firms. The recently passed 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is no exception. Among its many provisions is one that effectively protects SpaceX, Elon Musk’s brainchild, from competition from other rocket-manufacturers.
The provision in question, Section 1603, requires the secretary of defense to submit written justification for utilizing “space launch services for which the use of reusable vehicles is not eligible.”
In other words, by introducing obstacles to the Pentagon’s future use of expendable rockets, Congress created for the military a default preference for reusable rockets. The problem? SpaceX is the sole domestic supplier of reusable rockets.
Given NASA’s track record with reusable rockets and SpaceX’s numerous budget and design issues, this preference isn’t justified. For Congress to make the most of this new layer of oversight, it should hold SpaceX to a much more exacting standard of quality and cost-effectiveness.
Though conceptually, reusable rockets are revolutionary, so far, their execution has been less than stellar, threatening both our national security and our budget. NASA’s partially reusable Space Shuttle was retired in 2011, but not before it delayed approximately 40% of its missions, ballooned costs by over 15,000 percent from original projections, and suffered two major disasters in which 14 astronauts died due to quality control failures.
So far, there is no reason to expect SpaceX’s reusable rockets to fare any better.
SpaceX has delayed rocket launches on several occasions. As one example, Falcon Heavy was intended to launch in 2013 or 2014, but the launch didn’t occur until February of this year.
SpaceX’s launches aren’t without their problems, either. In June 2015, after SpaceX received a $110-million contract, one of its Falcon rockets exploded while on a mission to resupply the International Space Station.
Then, in September 2016, after SpaceX received a $62-million grant from the government, the Falcon exploded and in the process destroyed a $205-million Facebook satellite. The explosion was likely caused by SpaceX’s dangerous “load and go” fueling strategy that some aerospace experts warn against – a strategy SpaceX uses to this day.
Several recent government audits of SpaceX raise additional concerns about the reliability of its rockets. In a December 2017 report, the Department of Defense inspector general found that SpaceX had 33 major unconformities – 50% more than its leading competitor. A Forbes summary of the report noted the company’s failure to comply with requirements for everything from reviewing designs to calibrating their tools. An additional January 2018 report released by the NASA Aerospace Advisory Panel echoed the findings, underscoring concerns about SpaceX’s ability to safely transport astronauts to space.
The cost of SpaceX’s reusable rockets also continue to grow. NASA’s inspector general released a report highlighting the 50% increase in the cost for some of SpaceX’s launches. With each new report, it becomes increasingly clear that SpaceX’s reusable rocket technology is, for now, dubious at best and a suboptimal use of taxpayer dollars.
The trajectory of Elon’s other major company, Tesla, provides a preview of one potential future for SpaceX. Tesla too has missed numerous production targets despite receiving millions in subsidies and has yet to turn a profit. Elon’s recent antics have further alarmed Tesla’s investors. The SEC is currently investigating Musk’s potential violation of securities law in a tweet – a move possibly caused by his public relationship drama.
Congress and the Pentagon have a responsibility to properly assess the safety and cost-effectiveness of SpaceX’s rockets. Before making any additional grants to SpaceX, it should press the company for its data. The best available evidence suggests that Congress was premature to nudge the Pentagon to prefer reusable rockets. To prove otherwise, it will need to, at the very least, subject SpaceX and reusable rockets broadly to a much greater level of scrutiny.
Notice it is Elon Musk “says” with no evidence the claim is true........
There’s also the Japanese businessman who’s put down a large deposit for a flight around the Moon.
What’s 268.9 bar?
It’s the pressure of the combustion chamber.
The bar is a unit of pressure defined as 100 kilopascals. It is about equal to the atmospheric pressure on Earth at sea level.
That’s already way over my head.
The pressure is directly related to the force produced by the engine.
To put it in simple terms, SpaceX has put America back in the lead for the best rocket engine in the world.
Nice informative post.
No, if that had been the requirement there simply would have been no shuttle program. If each BFR has to be thrown away, they will never be, either.
Ludicrous speed now!
Didn't happen and ain't gonna happen. At the least not any time soon and by that I mean anyone alive currently ain't gonna see it. This Musk is a charleton, not that his ideas are bad but just not yet achievable. Get back to me in 2525.
Isn’t that typical. Going straight from an unfair preference for ULAs launchers to an unfair preference for SpaceX launchers.
Reusability is great and the way of the future, but competition is best.
This is truly excellent news. I think few realize just how far our domestic engine development had fallen.
“This Musk is a charleton, not that his ideas are bad but just not yet achievable. “
He is a showmen and a blabbermouth. But he hired some forward looking engineers and turned them lose with resources behind them. For that he deservers a good bit of credit.
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