What Elon Musk just Did with SpaceX Raptor Engine is thrill Scientist's minds...

foreign musk founded SpaceX in 2002 its mission was to provide reliable and affordable means of carrying payloads into space although it certainly has achieved this goal the company has done so much more than just that hidden away in a Texan Hangar is a brand new rocket engine that will take us to Mars help us explore the moon and even dominate the aviation industry but how Superior exactly is this engine let's find out in today's episode of great SpaceX where we'll unravel what Elon Musk just did with spacex's raptor that is thrilling the minds of scientists the SpaceX raptor is a cryogenic staged combustion rocket engine intended to power the high performance lower and upper stages for the Mars bound rocket Starship it has more than three times the thrust of spacex's Merlin 1D engines propelling the Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy rockets and steps away from a kerosene-based propellant Raptor consumes a combination of liquid methane and liquid oxygen in a full flow staged combustion cycle the highly reusable engine makes use of Concepts first demonstrated on the Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy Rockets including deep cryogenics cooled below their boiling point to increase their density and thus load the limited tank volume with a greater mass of propellant like spacex's Merlin engines at least two versions of raptor will be available one for use on the first stage booster of the Starship launch vehicle and one optimized for operation in vacuum for operation outside Earth's atmosphere for the interplanetary insertion and in the ambient Martian atmosphere for retro propulsion ahead of Landing Raptor's design was revealed in September of 2016 during an address given by Elon Musk at the international astronautical Congress outlining spacex's Mars transport architecture known as the first version of the Raptor family Raptor 1 uses methane and liquid oxygen fuels making it one of the cleanest burning Rockets available while Raptor 1 has been refined over the years it is now an obsolete design its construction is complex difficult to manufacture and has a long turnaround between launches it also has hits a Thrust ceiling of 185 tons meaning it will struggle to reach musk's demands for a mars-bound Starship spacex's solution then would be the Raptor 2 an engine capable of taking us to Mars and even Beyond this isn't just an updated Raptor 1 but an entirely new design from the ground up that can outstrip its predecessor in every metric compared to the original Raptor Raptor 2 looks borderline and complete a large amount of plumbing and sensors have been removed transitioning the engine from a Christmas tree look to a significantly cleaner look in that way SpaceX has made the engine more flame and heat proof a clear step towards spacex's goal of removing all engines shrouding from the booster which would decrease the booster's mass by around 6 tons this is a clear example of musk's the best part is no part Mantra another change made to Raptor 2 to further decrease the engine's mass is the removal of the torch igniters in the main combustion chamber instead of relying on redundant torch lighters the well-mixed hot oxygen gas and hot methane gas act hypergolic under the high temperature and pressure of the main combustion chamber the most the most fundamental change was opening the throat allowing more propellant to flow through the engine and increasing thrust Raptor 2's MCC pressure is an astounding 300 bar up 50 bar from raptor 1 and is the highest MCC pressure of any rocket engine ever the previous record for the highest MCC pressure was the Russian rd-180 which runs at 267 bar due to the wider throats at increased chamber pressure Raptor has gained a significant amount of thrust Raptor 1 produced 185 tons of thrust while Raptor 2 produces 230 tons the current Peak thrust of Raptor 2 operates at 247 tons so SpaceX is confident 250 tons will be achieved in comparison the best Russian engine which is the rd-180 generates 386 tons of sea level thrust but has two combustion Chambers and two nozzles on the other hand what's maybe just as important when designing a rocket is the thrust us to weight ratio or how heavy the engine is compared to how much thrust it produces a higher thrust to weight engine ultimately means less dead weight the engine needs to Lug around the rd-180 is at 78 to 1. the Raptor however takes the lead and is better here with an astonishing 200 to 1 thrust to weight ratio which is unbelievable but of course we have to believe it and not only that spacex's CEO Elon Musk shocked the entire space industry when revealing the production rate of the Raptor engines we're close to achieving one Raptor to Everyday production rate so we're so seven a week which is is tough for a complex engine um and uh I think by the end of this year we'll be able to produce a ship and a booster per month can you imagine that a booster per month holy SpaceX would dare to make such a claim but we're still waiting for the 1 000 Starship fleets anyway so let's just all be carefree about this and although the speed of Russian missile production is unknown we are very sure it cannot pass this 24-hour Mark Ula doesn't even have any Competitive Edge Competitive Edge over SpaceX in this aspect as it has never attempted to develop a rocket engine since 2006 and now it's simply too late in short SpaceX is in a league of its own and what's even more surprising is when you take a look at the price tag Raptor 2 is a major Improvement in simplification Elon Musk noted that the cost per Raptor 2 has gone down to only half of what the cost of one Raptor one previously was the long-term goal is an engine cost below 250 000 US Dollars well the most expensive engine is the rs-25 which has a sticker price of over 50 million dollars per engine then we've got the F1 engine which was 30 million then the rd-180 which is 25 million the ve4 at 16 and we have the Merlin engine Which is less than a million the cost is one thing but another strong consideration for the cost of the engine is whether or not it's reusable and here the rd-180 is not reusable or at least never reused which is different from Raptors which will all be reused up to 50 flights all in all spacex's Raptor truly is an engineering Masterpiece that is really thrilling the minds of scientists thank you so much for watching and if you enjoy what my team and I are doing you can become a patron through our patreon Link in the description below otherwise as always this is Kevin with great SpaceX and my team and I will see you next time foreign [Music]