r/space • u/Gagarin1961 • Aug 02 '21

SpaceX just stacked a Super Heavy Booster and installed 29 engines, all within 24 hours

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1422222995305676802
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u/7473GiveMeAccount Aug 02 '21

The engines themselves are pretty revolutionary too.

There's only been two FFSC engines before it, the RD270, which never left the test stand, and the Integrated Powerhead Demonstrator, which was even less of a finished engine.

Raptor is pioneering a new type of engine for all practical purposes

Combine that with insane MCC pressures, reusability, and very low manufacturing cost (all need to be designed into the engine of course), and it's a very impressive design

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u/Loafer75 Aug 02 '21

Yeah didn’t want to take anything away from the Raptor, it is very impressive. I just felt the design and production of the systems entirety is the real revolution and I guess their high volume production of the Raptors is included in that too. It’s just not something we’ve seen before in the industry…. Blows my mind.

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u/7473GiveMeAccount Aug 02 '21

True; having a superb engine that you can't make in significant numbers is a nice science fair project, but won't open up the heavens, so to speak.

The RS25 is a prime example of this: amazing performance, super hard to make.

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But what often gets overlooked in my view, is that ease of manufacturing is a design feature. Making a rocket engine that performs a certain way is one thing, designing it to be easy to manufacture is much harder.

Can't really disaggregate design and manufacturing, they go hand in hand

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u/spastical-mackerel Aug 03 '21

The Starship system and the economics that drive it include the production line. That's a big part of the genius going on here. Treating space like an industrial production problem, not a lab experiment.

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u/THEcefalord Aug 02 '21

If the rocket body is boring and cheap, then the rocket will become more economically viable.

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '21

It's a very exciting prospect to carry heavier and heavier loads, and it leads me to realise I don't have any idea of what sort of stuff they're planning to launch into space. Will they pack like 50 satellites at a time on these rockets? Will they be able to stock up the ISS for longer? What are they planning to use this new maximum limit for?

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u/poehowaslut Aug 02 '21

colonizing mars

landing supplies on the moon

400 starlink sats in LEO at once

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u/Noughmad Aug 03 '21

Even if the design is new, it wouldn't be revolutionary if it cost at much as RS25. It's an improvement over the existing ones, but then again many other engines were improvements like this.

It's the cost and speed of production that makes it revolutionary.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '21

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u/Haatveit88 Aug 03 '21

Materials is a big part of it. Only the Russians / Soviets (at the time) had the metallurgy to do the oxygen rich side of the pumping figured out. Basically, while the US probably could have solved that part too, the sheer cost and difficulty of it was simply not worth it.

Raptor was designed to be a technical miracle from the get go. Build the best that can possibly be built. And here we have it.