If you follow Elon Musk very closely, then you must know that Musk has only one goal:
to reach and colonize Mars.
For humanity to set foot on Mars, Musk’s company SpaceX launched the Starship program
years ago.
But we cannot achieve anything so easily.
And that’s what happened with them too.
Wait a minute, are you not aware of the hardest problems faced by the Starship?
Well, then stay tuned in the video as we will talk about the problems that the Starship
is facing.
The Starship is not complete without the Raptor engine.
The Raptor is going to power this Starship which is a huge, reusable vehicle that SpaceX
is developing to take people to the moon, Mars and other distant places.
Each of these Starships will require a lot of Raptors, 33 for the giant first-stage booster
which is also called the Super Heavy, and then six for the upper-stage spacecraft, known
as the Starship.
What is this Raptor engine then?
The Raptor is a massive methane engine that will propel the company’s next-generation
launch system Starship.
SpaceX also plans to use the Starship to take people to deep space, and it has also been
awarded a 2.9 billion dollar contract by NASA.
NASA wants SpaceX to develop the Starship as a lunar lander to transport the astronauts
to the Moon’s surface as soon as 2025.
SpaceX has been working hard at developing and testing Starship prototypes at the company’s
test site in Boca Chica, Texas.
Raptors are generally a family of methane rocket engines under development by SpaceX
since the late 2000s.
They are specially designed to power Starship which is Musk’s huge stainless steel transport
vehicle that has been created to deliver goods and up to 100 people to the moon and eventually
Mars.
And to complete the mission SpaceX aims to manufacture a lot of Raptor engines in the
future.
But this is not as easy as it sounds.
The company is apparently not on track to meet that challenge at the moment, and Musk
has said this himself.
Musk has said that they require 33 Raptors attached to the Starship.
Well, that’s a lot of them for one flight.
But the ambitious plan of building a self-sustaining city on Mars could take up to 30 years.
And Musk suggests that they will have to build 800 to 1,000 Raptor engines every year.
These are needed to be built soon as Musk has plans for dozens of flights of Starship
in 2022 with the goal of enabling commercial operations to begin in 2023.
But the way the work is going it is very difficult to meet this goal.
Due to the fact that Starship is designed to be reusable, SpaceX will need just a few
more operational vehicles in order to fly twice a month.
But we must also keep in mind that it doesn’t have any.
And due to that, Starship remains in the test-flight phase.
But that might change soon as SpaceX is gearing up to launch the program’s first orbital
test flight, which will involve a Starship prototype called an SN20 and a Super Heavy
which is known as Booster 4.
But there are more problems awaiting Musk and his team.
For the Starship vehicle, whose first orbital flight could take place as soon as possible,
SpaceX needs to produce as many Raptor engines as possible.
The Starship vehicle itself uses six Raptor engines, but its Super Heavy booster which
is needed for orbital launches currently has 29 engines.
Back in November, during a talk to two National Academies committees, Musk said that the Super
Heavy will, later on, require 33 Raptor engines.
Although Musk seems to be aiming for a much higher launch rate than possible.
In one of his emails to his employees, he said that “What it comes down to is that
we face the genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of
at least once every two weeks next year.”
That would be 26 launches next year.
However, one of the industry sources said that Musk was referring to a launch rate to
be achieved by the end of 2022.
The company needs to fix this flaw to succeed in its other non-NASA missions.
Reusing engines, again and again, is a part of the company’s strategy to drive down
the cost of space access.
It is hard to imagine what will happen if the key engine parts start degrading.
Not only SpaceX but its competitor Boeing which is also in the race to be the first
private company to fly humans in space has faced its own problems, particularly with
the dangerous vibrations that were caused by the aerodynamic interactions between its
spacecraft, the CST-100.
The WSJ reports that it is also facing problems with the parachutes that are designed to bring
its spacecraft and the humans on board safely back to earth.
Everyone has their own problems but let us just focus on SpaceX.
Apart from the production hurdles, SpaceX is also facing several engine problems.
Let us take a look at that too.
The problem with the new engine is that the fuel that burns into it is much hotter than
its predecessor.
And it is not clear whether its interior can hold such a greater amount of pressure.
Inside every rocket engine, there is a chamber pressure which refers to the amount of fuel
and oxidizing agent that can be mixed and ignited, which then is responsible for generating
the thrust required to lift the rocket.
If the chamber pressure is increased the rocket becomes more powerful, but on the other hand,
there is a risk that the engine might melt itself.
“It’s got on the order of a gigawatt of heat,” Musk said.
“A gigawatt is like what a nuclear power plant produces, so it really is desperately
trying to melt at any point in time.”
He added.
These ongoing problems with the new engine are creating a headache for Musk.
“Right now, of any technical problem, I’m spending the most time personally on Raptor
2,” Musk told reporters.
He also described the engine as one of his two most vexing challenges ever, alongside
his role as Tesla’s CEO who is trying to improve that company’s Full self-driving
software which is totally filled with bugs.
Coming back to the point, as part of the effort to avoid melting the engine, SpaceX is working
on applying heat shields which will be able to absorb the immense energy released.
But the heat isn’t the only problem Musk has to deal with the Raptor 2.
After the slow production of the engine in the previous years, the website Space Explored
and CNBC both said that Musk has warned the staff of the “genuine risk of bankruptcy”
if SpaceX didn’t get a grip on the production problems.
He also urged SpaceX employees to join him in working through the long Thanksgiving weekend.
“We need all hands on deck to recover from what is, quite frankly, a disaster,” Musk
wrote in an internal email quoted by the media.
While Musk also said that his engineers are "very close to solving" the engine problems,
we all know that he is notorious for overly optimistic predictions.
A few months back, Musk said in a tweet that the Raptor 2 model will be the only one that
SpaceX would produce while going forward.
And later on, he said that he expects SpaceX to manufacture five to six Raptor 2 engines
and then increase the number to seven or more a week.
Musk has made it clear that an engine as powerful as Raptor 2 is necessary to fly off to Mars
with huge cargo and a lot of people.
“The critical threshold for Mars is to have a city that is self-sustaining,” he said.
“If it’s missing any ingredients at all, however minor that is, then if the ships from
Earth stop coming for any reason the city will die out.”
He added.
Musk also said that as he keeps on working on the production issues and the engine problems,
it becomes clear that it was much worse than it appeared back then, and following the exiting
of prior senior management, they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was
reported.
"There is no way to sugarcoat this."
Said Musk.
Well, we all know that this isn't the first time Musk has cited the problems regarding
his projects.
Back in 2018, Musk said that Tesla is on the verge of collapsing over the Model 3 production
problems.
But since then the company has rebounded, and Tesla is now valued at $1 trillion.
These things will continue to happen, but apart from this what do you think about the
problems that Starship is facing?
Will the engine problems be solved or Musk’s dream of colonizing Mars will be just a dream?
But in case of success, SpaceX has already a plan of how to Handle Life Support Inside
The Starship For Over 6 Months, to know more, just click on the video.