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A NASA employee standing between two Raptor 2 Vacuum engines (background) and a Raptor 2 sea-level (foreground). The streamlined design is due to the reduced parts visible above the engine nozzles. Raptor 2 is a complete redesign of the Raptor 1 engine. [79] The turbomachinery, chamber, nozzle, and electronics were all redesigned.
The booster would utilize multiple Raptor engines, similar to the use of nine Merlin 1s on each Falcon 9 booster core. [17] The following month, SpaceX confirmed that as of March 2014, all Raptor development work is exclusively on this single very large rocket engine, and that no smaller Raptor engines were in the current development mix. [14]
The Raptor engine uses a full-flow staged combustion cycle with oxygen and methane-rich turbopumps. [27] [28] Before 2014, only two full-flow staged-combustion rocket engine designs had advanced enough to undergo testing: the Soviet RD-270 project in the 1960s and the Aerojet Rocketdyne Integrated Powerhead Demonstrator in the mid-2000s. [29]
Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to celebrate the first-test fire of the SpaceX Raptor flight engine, which will be used on its next-gen rocket. The company's head honcho shared footage of the ...
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Over the years of design, the proportion of sea-level engines to vacuum engines on the second stage varied drastically. By 2019, the second stage design had settled on six Raptor engines—three optimized for sea-level and three optimized for vacuum. [21] [22] To decrease weight, aft flaps on the second stage were reduced from three to two. [23]
Both stages are equipped with Raptor engines, the first flown and mass-produced full-flow staged combustion cycle engines, which burn liquid methane (natural gas) and liquid oxygen. As of 2024, Starship is in development with an iterative and incremental approach, involving test flights of prototype vehicles.
Video of the launch. Starship flight test 2 was the second flight test of the SpaceX Starship launch vehicle. SpaceX performed the flight test on November 18, 2023. [5] The mission's primary objectives were for the vehicle to hot stage—a new addition to Starship's flight profile—followed by the second stage attaining a near-orbital trajectory with a controlled reentry over the Pacific ...