SpaceX performed an engine firing test on the newly-developed Raptor 3 Starship/Super Heavy rocket engine.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and President Gwynne Shotwell shared the pictures of the engine firing test of Raptor 3 on X(Twitter). Unfortunately, no videos of the test were posted by any official account of the company.
The simple design of the Raptor 3 engine created confusion even for people who work in the rocket engine industry. The clutter-free look of the engine gave the impression that SpaceX has probably shown an unfinished Raptor 3.
The CEO of United Launch Alliance (ULA) Tory Bruno responded to the Raptor 3 photos by saying it’s a “partially assembled” engine.
Tory wrote on X (Twitter):
They have done an excellent job making the assembly simpler and more producible. So, there is no need to exaggerate this by showing a partially assembled engine without controllers, fluid management, or TVC systems, then comparing it to fully assembled engines that do.
Tory admired the overall outcome of the Raptor 3 engine development, he threw light criticism at SpaceX as well. Although he’s involved in rocket engine development at ULA, he thought the Raptor 3 engine shown in the official pictures was partially assembled. To which, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell replied with the following picture of the Raptor 3 firing test with a caption:
Works pretty good for a “partially assembled” engine 🙂
Gwynne Shotwel / SpaceX via X (Twitter).
Related: Raptor 3 Starship engine is lighter, less complicated but more powerful and reusable
Raptor 3 SN1 (Serial Number 1) engine was fired for the first time at the SpaceX Rocket Factory in McGregor, Texas yesterday. We can see in the picture above that the Raptor V3 engine is installed on an engine test stand for firing. The flames of the 280tf (ton-force) of thrust are also visible in the photo.
According to reports by the NASASpaceFlight.com ground observation team, the Raptor 3 SN1 engine was fired for a duration of 30 seconds.
The CEO of SpaceX added more information on Raptor 3 in response to SpaceX’s official post about the rocket engine. He revealed that Raptor 3 with further improvements will be able to achieve a thrust of more than 300tf (ton-force). With 33 Raptor engines installed on a Super Heavey rocket booster, this will result in 10,000 tons of downward thrust at liftoff.
Important to note that the induced mass (mass required by a given engine design that is not the engine itself) of Raptor 3, while far better than Raptor 2, still has a lot of room for improvement.
Thrust will exceed 300 tons with Raptor 3.x (thrust/mass>200), enabling 10,000 tons of thrust at liftoff and there might be up to 5 sec of Isp gain over time.
Getting close to the limit of known physics.
Elon Musk via X (Twitter).
Raptor 3 engine does not need a heat shield
Interestingly, Elon Musk revealed some details of the Raptor V3 engine in a Starbase documentary recorded around 1 month ago. Everyday Astronaut/Tim Dodd asked Elon Musk some questions about the Raptor 3 engine development and Musk answered some of them but didn’t completely reveal what was coming up.
According to Musk, although the Raptor 3 engine looks simple from the outside, it’s complicated on the inside. The reason for its internal complexity is the absence of a heat shield. To manage heat in the absence of a heat shield, the Raptor 3 engine has integrated cooling circuits in all of its parts.
The next-gen Raptor engine needs no heat shield. And because it’s exposed, it has to have cooling. So, there’s integral cooling circuits throughout all the parts. So, it looks very simple on the outside but it’s complicated on the inside.
Elon Musk via Everyday Astronaut / YouTube (watch below).
Explaining the above image of the Raptor 3 engine firing test, Elon Musk wrote:
The parts that appear white are actually black, but covered in ice.
Raptor 3 does not have a heat shield, but it has integrated cooling circuits all across the parts. As more information surfaced after the test, the ice-cooled parts of the Raptor 3 engine seen in the above picture are cooled with cold methane and hot methane is used to fire the engine.
SpaceX uses methane as fuel and liquid oxygen (temperature of –297°F or –183°C) as an oxidizer called MethaLOX. Cold methane runs through the upper parts of the Raptor 3 engine which eliminates the need for a heat shield between the upper and lower parts of the rocket engine.
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They’re jealous, frustrated, envious and incapable to do that!
There’s one name for them: LOSERS!
What are you even talking about? The Raptor 3 appears to be very impressive. Hate to see success?
He’s referring to the critics.
I do not take comments or thoughts from ULA seriously…I mean what is that still parked at STS!
Raptor 3 is a work of art
Elon has the most incredible mind on earth right now. His endless effort to make everything simpler, with fewer moving parts, less expensive and easier/quicker to manufacture at scale is exceeded only by his own constant challenge to use every iota of his brain.
It is a work of art, Barry, just like the mind it came from.
While I do not agree with Musk on his political stance, however when it comes to space flight there is no one or company that is at the head of the class like Musk and Space X. They are truly the future of space exploration in our life time and beyond.
Thank you Elon Musk and everyone involved with Space X, you definitely get the checkered flag in the private, commercial and military space race.
He has common sense as well. That’s why his political views are the way they are. And due to his owning X, he sees now both sides of the argument and both sides of the propaganda. Logically, he is in a better position than most to understand which side of history to be on.
This all reads like a near future Ben Bova novel. Bova wrote about a entrepreneur that starts a new space race. Q colony on the moon, exploring our solar system, asteroid wars, and a whole bunch of stuff.
It’s so crazy I just new when I first heard and read about Starlink and and SpaceX they was gonna be a game changer I just had a feeling in my gut wish I coulda invested but I ain’t a rich guy, Starlink use in Ukraine and its military application possibly even in the missile defense realm will be invaluable and SpaceX contribution to the travel in the cosmos will be humanity changing.
When a real team have the resources and the support
The possibilities are infinite
Complicated engineering to overcome a problem that should not have been in the first place: Raptor is ill-suited for Starship and its 33 engine design necessitates massive compensations to stave off a chain reaction failure
He could have deployed a simple 5 engine design that worked fantastically for Saturn V but instead decided to repurpose his Raptor engines in a 33 engine design reminiscent of the failed Soviet N1, and is now compromising an entire decade of manned space plans.
He was warned it would be difficult but Elon thought his genius would overcome all problems and here we are, with Starship STILL unable to complete a simple earth orbit without a catastrophic failure of some kind. Meanwhile, Saturn V went from slide rule to launch in 18 months.
Elon is a narcissist who compensates for his failures by leaning on other people and through ridiculous hype.
These engines will prove to have a flaw like everything else in Elon’s brand catalog lately. Once he sat back and listened to smarter people, now he thinks HE is the ‘smarter people’ despite a lack of education – with predictably disastrous results.
His fanboys line up to sing his praises in these comment sections but the weight of his failure is becoming too large to ignore. He has doomed Artemis with false promises and this is just a long string of make-up work to fix the problem he created.
SpaceX would be far better off without Elon. So would our space programs.
Something seems to have passed you by it’s not Elon who is the genius it’s his genius ability to put a team together that can solve problems and innovate new designs and manufacture them in a cost effective way
So where’s your space ship then?
Hey J Elliott, your such a lover. IT’S called INNOVATION.
And what have you done for mankind, oh I know – Zippo, Nodda, Zilch.
Would spacex exist at all without Elon? Why are you so angry at progress?
Well, without SpaceX, we’d still be using Russian rockets. Falcon 9 changed everything. The single use Saturn V was an amazing marvel, it also was $51 Billion to build (in today’s money) Starship is up to $8 billion so far. I don’t drink Elon’s Kool-Aid, but have to give credit where it’s due.
Was the Saturn V reusable? Nope. Totally different requirements.
There’s just so much wrong here.
The Raptor isn’t repurposed. It was built for starship and have never been on another vessel. Falcon 9 uses the merlin engine which doesn’t even use the same fuel.
Starship needs multiple small engines since you can’t throttle down larger engines enough to enable landing. Flacon X has to do a powerslam technique since it’s minimum thrust is higher than the vehicle mass when landing. The starship has to hover in place to be caught by the stand.
The previous starship test flight had enough energy to go orbital but they choose an orbit that would crash in the ocean to not leave any space debris if they failed.
Starship tests have shown that it can perform its mission even if some engines die, this was not possible for the Saturn.
Merlins and Raptors have better lifespan than any other existing engine.
SpaceX have launched mor tonnage to orbit than any other organization ever.
I would also imagine that having many smaller engines is considerably advantageous especially if 1 engine fails
Being reduced to 97% power compared to 80% would be worrisome, but nothing like puckering.
Your reality is skewed. Elon may be a prick. But he’s our amazing world changing pr**k and every country on the planet would love to have him (even with his social drama). I suggest you undertake serious reflection.
First company to land and reuse a first stage. Has 9 engines… First LEO satellite based mass internet system. Largest and most powerful rocket ever and is fully reusable. Spacex and Elon making history.
Love or hate him. But he gets results, and his team has completely changed how rocket science / rocket manufacturing works.
All I see is a bunch of over spent U.S. tax dollars on projects that leave astronauts stranded in space.
Meanwhile, Space X is the tip of the spear, and leading the tech race into space, and knows how to make itself profitable while ULA, Boeing, Northrup-Grumman, Raytheon and all the other MIC corps rip off tax dollars right in front of our faces….GO SPACEX!!!!
I truly feel sorry for you. You have convinced yourself in to believing these wild statements and anybody who disagrees is a fanboy.
There are many reasons for 33 engines. To land a empty booster, you need very low thrust and rocket engines stall below a certain throttle. Simple solution is to have many small engines and only fire a few of your 33 engines at a decent throttle above their stall point. More engines also gives you more redundancy with multiple engine shutdowns. Lastly more engines means you can benefit from mass production and make your engines much cheaper per unit of thrust.
Indeed
The Raptor 3 might be ushering in a technological marvel. However, we should hold off on ‘counting our chickens before they hatch’. Regardless, when your technically savvy competition mistakes the completed version for a partially assembled engine, the potential for Raptor 3 success is mindboggling. And, it seems that no matter how much catching up t competition does, SpaceX stays leaps and bounds ahead. We need competent competition in the now privatized spaced industry and Blue Origin and Boeing have been major disappointments. GO SPACE X, the undisputable pack leader pulling the big dog sled!!
Raptor 3 is amazing. Raptor 2 is already cheaper at about $1 million each. Raptor 3 is supposed to cost under $500 thousand each, and produce about 617000 ft-lb. If Starship wasn’t in progress, and Falcon 9 on the retirement path, I’d imagine Raptor 3 replacing the Merlin engines on that booster; however, one Raptor might be too much power for the little falcon 2nd stage.
Blue Origin’s BE-4 appears to cost about $7 million each, and produce 550000 ft-lb. So far, all the planned launches with BE-4 engines are on disposable rockets. Lofting the Kuiper satellite constellation will likely be very expensive. ULA and BE-4 need to accelerate their rocket-re-usability plans. I suggest jumping to a Starship-like system ASAP. (Likewise for the European Space Agency.)
I hated politics and I’m Canadian, so I really could give nothing about Musk’s views. I just want to see big rockets fly up and work or explode..hell ya, we all get entertained and learn stuff. Now Boweing bowing boing put put ohh s**t the door fell off .thrusters don’t work, lets put crazy s**t on our vehicles and don’t tell the pilots, great company.
Raptor 3 , looks like it’s from the future. Even more impressive with the frost while firing.
What’s white is black. Loving it.
Space X, the Secretariat of space exploration. So far ahead. Elon is the face of it all as he deserves to be but, I suspect that there are some young folks given free rein, unafraid of failure who are driving this progres at such an incredible pace.