Not to say that Raptor 2 is the final version. So put succinctly, Raptor 2 is closer to a flight-ready engine, while Raptor 1 was more of an early testing prototype. IIRC previously they were trying to perfect the cooling from the start but kept melting the engine so now they just take the slight efficiency hit and just use more cooling than might be needed, with the goal of eventually improving it as they learn more about the engine. Besides that they've changed things based on lessons learned from testing on Raptor 1 like minimizing the use of flanges since apparently they cause a lot of trouble with leaks and adjusting how they cool the engine. It has been better optimized for mass production and lots of parts have been combined. The biggest change (and most visually obvious) is that Raptor 2 has much fewer parts than 1 and doesn't need the 'christmas tree' of sensors and plumbling extending out from the engine. Rebuilding your engine in the middle of a test campaign is bonkers to me, and I'd like to know why they did it and what changed.įor the most part the change from Raptor 1 to 2 isn't really as much of a rebuild as it is that over time the small changes to Raptor 1 added up so much that it might as well be a different engine.
Has there been a writeup anywhere about what changed for Raptor 2? Starship will be the worlds most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the ability to carry in excess of 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit. Despite a lot of difficulties in the world still feels great to be able to see this as my parents and grandparents witness Apollo. We’ll do a bunch of tests in December and hopefully launch in January, Musk said, speaking at a meeting of. Well have 39 flightworthy engines built by next month, then another month to integrate, so hopefully May for orbital flight test, Musk tweeted in.
When that thing lights up though it'll certainly be a day to remember. Elon Musk on Wednesday said SpaceX is hoping to launch the first orbital flight test of its mammoth Starship rocket in January, a schedule that depends on testing and regulatory approval. Their runway will extend a lot after that, and v2 will also hopefully let them shrink cell sizes and further improve performance. If SS is going to orbit and SH reused then even if it takes them a while to perfect SS reentry and landing such that it's in effect expended, it can still be immediately and profitably put to work on Starlink v2. But that's where a lot of the expense and Raptor numbers will be. SH is something they really need to get recovered fairly quickly, though with its much simpler up/down as with F9 and much lower minimum effective TWR I'm hopeful that'll be relatively straightforward (as much as anything is in rocketry of course). Elon Musk just revealed that after some test launch in December, SpaceX will hopefully launch the first orbital flight of Starship in January, 2022. 'We'll have 39 flightworthy engines built by next month, then.
#SPACEX WILL HOPEFULLY FIRST ORBITAL FLIGHT UPDATE#
Given that this is Raptor 2 even a single engine successful test fire attached to the full booster is very exciting to see. Elon Musk on Monday gave an update on the timeline for SpaceX's first orbital launch of the company's next-generation Starship rocket.