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Kestrel was a LOX/RP-1 pressure-fed rocket engine, and was developed by SpaceX as the Falcon 1 rocket's second stage main engine; it was used in 2006–2009. It was built around the same pintle architecture as SpaceX's Merlin engine but does not have a turbo-pump, and is fed only by tank pressure.
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]
Engine Origin Designer Vehicle Status Use Propellant Power cycle Specific impulse (s) [a] Thrust (N) [a] Chamber pressure (bar) Mass (kg) Thrust: weight ratio [b] Oxidiser: fuel ratio
In 2015, SpaceX announced a number of changes to the Falcon Heavy rocket, worked in parallel to the upgrade of the Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle. [23] In December 2016, SpaceX released a photo showing the Falcon Heavy interstage at the company headquarters in Hawthorne, California .
When stacked and fully fueled, Starship has a mass of approximately 5,000 t (11,000,000 lb), [c] a diameter of 9 m (30 ft) [16] and a height of 121.3 m (398 ft). [17] The rocket has been designed with the goal of being fully reusable to reduce launch costs; [18] it consists of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage [19] which are powered by Raptor and Raptor Vacuum engines.
Raptor is a family of rocket engines developed and manufactured by SpaceX. It is the third rocket engine in history designed with a full-flow staged combustion (FFSC) fuel cycle, and the first such engine to power a vehicle in flight. [15] The engine is powered by cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen, a combination known as methalox.
Payload to low Earth orbit was projected to be 6,100 kg (13,400 pounds). Propulsion for the rocket was planned to be provided by four Merlin 1D rocket engines, engines that were also to be used in the Falcon 9 v1.1 beginning in 2013, and also on the Falcon Heavy in 2014. Its first flight was notionally planned for 2016.
In October 2012, SpaceX publicly announced concept work on a rocket engine that would be "several times as powerful as the Merlin 1 series of engines, and won't use Merlin's RP-1 fuel". [58] They indicated that the large engine was intended for a new SpaceX rocket, using multiple of these large engines could notionally launch payload masses of ...