SpaceX's futuristic rocket raptor engines
are transforming rapidly.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to twitter to better
explain what actually happened when the latest
full-scale SpaceX Starship prototype failed
during one of its first tests, while later
He also revealed the fact that the rocket
engines are now set to power a future prototype’s
first flight.
On Sunday, 5th April, Elon Musk shared an
image of the company's Raptor engines.
These next-generation components are designed
to support the SpaceX Starship, a fully-reusable
rocket designed to send humans to Mars and
beyond.
On his Twitter page, Musk explained that the
design is "evolving rapidly."
Musk has revealed three operational Raptors
in the same frame, a certain first for the
groundbreaking rocket engine.
The image comes as SpaceX continues work on
its Starship project.
After completing the first full-size prototype
in September 2019, the team has been focused
on producing more iterations of the ship at
the Boca Chica facility in Texas.
The Raptor will act as the heart of this new
project: the SpaceX Starship itself is expected
to use six of them, while the Super Heavy
booster that will lift the ship out of Earth's
gravity can support up to 37 of them.
That means each vehicle could in total use
a staggering 43 raptor engines.
If SpaceX Starship SN3 had survived its cryogenic
proof tests last week, SpaceX’s plan was
to install and static fire either one or three
Raptor engines.
A successful static fire campaign would have
then been followed soon after by a full-scale
Starship’s inaugural flight test, potentially
seeing the ship fly as high as Starhopper’s
final August 2019 hop.
In this video, Engineering Today will discuss
SpaceX's next Starship which rapidly coming
together.
Elon Musk Unveils SpaceX's New Starship's
Raptor Engines and Explains Previous SN3 Failure.
Let’s get into details.
The SpaceX Falcon Heavy, which currently ranks
as the world's most powerful operational rocket,
uses just 27 Merlin engines across its three
first-stage cores.
In short, these engines are set to push a
powerful rocket.
But Musk's new image demonstrates just how
quickly these Raptor engines are changing.
The new Raptors appeared to be missing a lot
of the wiring from the engines that arrived
at Boca Chica a while ago.
A Twitter user produced a photo edit that
showed Chris Pratt doing his famous Jurassic
Park pose in front of the Raptor dinosaurs:
Considering the strength of the raptor engines,
it's an appropriate pose.
The raptor engine is expected to pack around
double the thrust of its Merlin predecessor,
reaching 380,000 pounds at sea level.
In February 2019, Raptor engines test-firing
took place at SpaceX’s Rocket Development
and Test Facility, located just outside of
McGregor, Texas.
Musk tweeted, the tests went very well, achieving
the thrust necessary for both the SpaceX Starship
and its first-stage booster, the Super-Heavy.
Musk also claimed that the raptor engine beat
a long-standing engine record by reaching
269 bar of chamber pressure, beating out the
Russian-made RD-180 engine with 258 bar.
The RD-180 was the product of the Soviet-era
Energia rocket program, which sought to create
a super-heavy launch vehicle that would take
the reusable Buran spacecraft – a Russia’s
version of the Space Shuttle - into orbit.
While the program was discontinued, the engine
survived and was even imported to the US,
where it became part of Lockheed Martin’s
Atlas III rocket and United Launch Alliance’s
Atlas V.
The RD-180 is a venerable proven design.
The Raptor is still in advanced development.
The Raptor uses more modern materials, some
3D printing and modern manufacturing methods
compared to the RD-180.
And it probably costs a lot more as well.
The raptor engines are designed to support
SpaceX Starship's method of turning.
Musk explained in September 2019 that an aircraft
usually pivots by moving rudders and other
components.
With the SpaceX Starship, the raptor engines
will pivot up to 15 degrees in their sea-level
configuration while remaining stationary in
their vacuum configurations.
Their fuel will also help enable some of SpaceX's
more ambitious missions.
With the Starship, Musk is tantalizingly close
to achieving one of his dreams for the future
of space exploration.
Its Raptor engines use liquid oxygen and liquid
methane, which unlike rocket propellant could
theoretically be harvested from the atmosphere
on Mars and other planets.
Combined with a reusable rocket design, and
the SpaceX Starship is close to enabling a
planet-hopping network of refuel points where
astronauts explore the solar system further
than ever before.
SpaceX will need to produce a large number
of Raptor engines to meet its goals.
Musk has spoken before about the need to produce
1,000 Starships to achieve SpaceX's goal of
building a city on Mars by 2050.
But before it can consider venturing out further
than any manned spaceship ever, SpaceX will
need to make its full-size Starship prototype
complete a short hop.
SpaceX has carried out the third full-scale
Starship prototype’s first cryogenic pressure
test by fueling the vehicle’s upper propellant
chamber with tons of liquid nitrogen.
On April 3rd, SpaceX initiated the third full-scale
Starship prototype’s first ultra-cold pressure
test by loading the roughly 30m (100 ft) tall
rocket’s upper propellant tank with what
was likely more than 400 metric tons (roughly
900,000 lb) of liquid nitrogen.
For hours, liquid nitrogen — a neutral chemical
designed to simulate propellant — was loaded
and offloaded repeatedly.
Then, around 2:07 AM local time, the liquid
oxygen chamber below the methane tank suddenly
grooved, and because of gravity, similar to
the way plastic bottles with some air sucked
out.
After a few agonizing seconds of unstoppable
crumpling, gravity took its course and pulled
the heavy upper tank to the ground, which
shredded the remaining thin steel skin of
the rocket.
Musk has taken it to Twitter to confirm that
as per videos of the issue, an unfortunate
test design and operator error, rather than
a technical problem of the rocket itself,
was most probably the cause of Starship SN3‘s
failure.
This is significant because it means that
— unless future operators have error-prone
days — Starship SN3’s second cryogenic
test went quite well, and there will be no
delays to Starship SN4's ongoing assembly
Particularly in light of Elon Musk’s statement
that operator error and a bad test design
caused Starship SN3’s failure, the ship’s
April 3rd performance was quite impressive.
That SN3 remained vertical for several seconds
after its aft tank crumpled and likely lost
pressure – despite carrying a load equivalent
to a fully-loaded Boeing 747 passenger jet
– suggests that the vehicle’s structure
is extremely robust.
In his tweet, Musk said the rocket failed
because the lower liquid oxygen tank wasn't
pressurized enough to support the weight of
a liquid-nitrogen-loaded methane tank above
it.
Musk’s description almost makes it sound
like one or several people failed to account
for the fact that liquid nitrogen is nearly
25% heavier than the cryogenic methane it
was simulating.
However, although a prototype probably valued
at several million dollars plus a month of
SpaceX labor was lost, SpaceX is able to move
forward with its SN4 with confidence without
delay .
Musk says SpaceX may still reuse the SN3’s
rocket’s thrust section, the agency’s
Starship test plan will focus on SN4, the
next complete prototype.
It is more probable that SN4 will reuse little
to no elements of structure from SN3, but
that might end up causing just a few weeks
of delays.
The SpaceX Starship is one of Musk’s most
ambitious and fast-moving projects among a
portfolio that includes bewildering ambition
and scope already.
SpaceX plans to begin commercial flights in
2021, with a moon trip scheduled for 2023.
Even if the company can’t hit these goals—and
truly, no one knows how the global COVID-19
(coronavirus) pandemic will ripple effect
into the future—Musk has a track record
of both delivering in short time frames and
staying flexible and optimistic after the
kinds of failures and iterations that all
major projects encounter.
It's perhaps reassuring to know that — despite
unprecedented global hardship — Musk and
his company SpaceX are still moving forward
with the Starship prototype, in search of
a better tomorrow.
Considering a certain assembly step completed
on April 4th, Starship SN4 is set to launch
in four weeks under the presumption of no
enhancements to the speed of production, setting,
and testing.
However, knowing SpaceX, the rocket could
be completely stacked and tested even sooner.
For now, it looks like we’ll thus have to
wait at least a few more weeks to see Starship
attempt another cryogenic proof test and then,
witness the power of one or more Raptor engines
installed on it.
