Talk of the Town is Elon Musk backed SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft launches. Now SN11 is getting ready to be Launched using ‘Raptor Engines’, What are these Raptor engines ?
✔The Raptor is a ‘Re-usable’ methalox (methane & liquid oxygen) staged combustion engine that power the SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft.
✔SpaceX Raptor sea-level & SpaceX Raptor vacuum are the two variants of this engine.
✔Raptor engines started Flight testing on SpaceX Prototype Starhopper in July 2019 & became the first ‘full flow staged combustion’ rocket engine ever flown.
✔The Raptor is powered by cryogenic liquid methane (Fuel) & Oxidizer liquid oxygen (LOX) ,subcooled ,almost to freezing point.
✔In the staged combustion cycle, propellant flows through multiple combustion chambers, & in this case, a twin-shaft staged combustion cycle uses both oxidizer-rich & fuel-rich Pre-burners.
✔Engine ignition for all Raptor engines, both on the pad and in the air, is by spark ignition.
✔Raptor engines have a thrust rating of 3,050 kN & a specific impulse of 3.4 km/s at sea level .
✔Raptor Vacuum engine is also a methalox full-flow staged combustion (FFSC) engine but is optimized for higher performance under vacuum conditions.
Author – Tanmay Palei
Sr. Aircraft Structure Engineer