Raptor Roars
SpaceX propulsion just achieved first firing of the Raptor interplanetary transport engine pic.twitter.com/vRleyJvBkx
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 26, 2016
SpaceX propulsion just achieved first firing of the Raptor interplanetary transport engine pic.twitter.com/vRleyJvBkx
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 26, 2016
Nice. Good to see progress on this engine. It would make a nice upper stage engine for Falcon Heavy.
Not at those design goals. This is designed to be a 3,000 kN beast in vacuum.
Maybe a scaled version.
You might want to tell the USAF that they are wrong,:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Yup, and that USAF upper stage Raptor prototype for F9/FH is due to be delivered on or before Dec. 31 2017. Any bets the rest of the stage will be the real long pole item?
They are not obligated to make a stage. Just develop a suitable prototype engine that could be theoretically used in a future upper stage, and test it alone. That is what USAF is paying for.
The Raptor variant contracted for a F9/FH second stage is not the huge 3 MN MCT vacuum engine that Elon talked about today.
SpaceX has not specified what the designs goals are for that project, but F9/FH will never have a 3MN upper stage engine, unless SpaceX wants to liquefy the payload while using it. Even thinking about it is ludicrous man, run the numbers.
I might want to ask what the specifications for the Air Force contract are. The available information isn’t completely consistent. The Raptor SpaceX has described is way too high thrust for the Raptor-based, Falcon upper stage the Air Force contract seems to call for. I’d say a smaller version may be in the works under the Air Force contract.
Many thought this was going to happen. It just made too much sense NOT for it to happen. And while we know Elon pushes hard he would not have tested unless he was confident it would go well.
Elon and SpaceX are excellent at marketing and this is a nice pop before tomorrow for “the fans” see his speech tomorrow.
That is a beast. 300 bar is 4351.14 psi or 30 MPa. That is a lot more
than even the russian ORSC engines! For reference, M1D is about 10MPa, SSME is about 20MPa, and RD-170 is about 25MPa. RD-180 is 26.1 MPa and Angara RD-191 (which has the highest pressure ever fielded in a production rocket engine) is 26.2 MPa.
They are making an engine with a “new” propellant type, a new engine cycle and the highest chamber pressure ever fielded.
This is an EXTREMELY ambitious goal. Some more info.
– The 382s Isp is for a 150:1 expansion ratio vacuum/Mars surface nozzle.
– The vacuum nozzle is “pretty close” to 14ft (4,2m) in diameter.
– Raptor is using multiple stage pumps to pump the propellants to >45 MPa.
ps: And if this thing blows btw, it takes everything with it. There is so
much energy stored that you cannot talk about engine-out capability.
The performance is impressive, but customers and astronauts are more concerned about reliability.