HOW SPACEX RAPTOR ENGINE WORKS – INSANE ENGINEERING CONCEPT
The SpaceX Raptor engine is a full-flow staged-combustion-cycle rocket engine designed to power the Starship
completely, and it’s currently in development. The engine runs on cryogenic liquid methane
and liquid oxygen, known as methalox, rather than the RP-1 kerosene, known as kerolox,
used in the spacex Merlin engine and Kestrel rocket engines. Raptor engine produces more
than double the thrust of SpaceX's existing Merlin engine, which drives the Falcon 9 and
Falcon Heavy rockets.
SpaceX has just finished stacking another rocket named "Booster 4," the first of its
Super Heavy rocket boosters, which is slated to lift off soon. This is a huge, single-core
rocket that stands around 70 meters tall and has a 9-meter diameter. It has almost double
the force of the Saturn V rocket, which delivered NASA humans to the Moon.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, something extraordinary occurred. Engineers at SpaceX's facility near
Boca Chica Beach attached 29 Raptor rocket engines to the rocket. Of course, three of
the raptor engines can lift the falcon 9 from the ground into the sky, but 29 more of these
engines were added to the booster 4 rocket - each with intricate plumbing lines and connections.
These are the number of engines that Super Heavy will fly with for initial flight testing,
however it is expected that the ultimate configuration would have up to 33 engines, so we'll see
what SpaceX does next.
Welcome to Tech Space, we've rolled out another great video to educate you on the insane engineering
concept of spacex raptor engine, and how it works, make sure you stay tuned to the end
of this video so you don't miss out on another incredible tech ideas you haven't thought
of before.
Before we get into the specifics of how the SpaceX Raptor engine works, it's important
to understand the differences between a jet engine and a rocket engine.
Jet engines and rockets operate on the same physics concept, creating thrust through an
internal pressure differential, and thus adheres to Newton's Third Law of Motion, which specifies
that exhaust gases move in an equal and opposite direction. The primary difference is that
jets use oxygen from the air to burn fuel, but rockets carry their own oxygen, allowing
them to operate in space.
This leads to a second significant difference: jet engines have two openings – an intake
and an exhaust nozzle – but rocket engines only have one entrance, which is an exhaust
nozzle. Now that you've learned about the various operational concepts of these two
spacecrafts, it's time to move on to the major topic of the day.
Simply described, the Raptor engine as a full-flow dual-bell methane and LOX staged-combustion
engine. LOX simply refers to an engine that burn on cryogenic and oxidizer engine fuel,
which means that both its fuel and oxidizer are liquefied gases stored at extremely low
temperatures.
Again, lets briefly look over the distinctions between the Merlin engine and Raptor engine.
The word "Merlin" was coined by SpaceX not after a well-known movie series, where the
hero was named "Merlin," but rather after the types of energy fluid combustion systems
used in the Falcon 9 and booster 4 rockets.
As previously stated, the Merlin 1-D engine is the current engine utilized on the Block
5 Falcon 9 spacecraft, although it comes in two variants: sea-level and vacuum. The Merlin
is an RP-1/LOX open-cycle gas-generator engine.
This implies that the Merlin utilizes a pre-burner to burn a tiny quantity of RP-1 or kerosene
fuel and LOX in a separate system, which powers the turbopump to eventually pump the fuel,
but before that, high pressure helium is used to pre-drive the pump so the engine will start.
The turbine's burning gas is simply expelled through a pipe to the engine's side. This
method brings its benefit of simplicity.
The turbine that powers the turbopump then propels fuel and LOX into the combustion chamber,
where it is ignited and ejected out of the nozzle bell to generate thrust.
You’ve known how the Merlin engine works, so now, it’s time to finally come to the
raptor engine.
The raptor engine, on the other hand, still uses a small amount of fuel and LOX to burn
and drive the turbine as well as the turbo-pump, but the difference is that the mix is fuel
rich and proceeds through the turbine to the main combustion chamber, where it is injected
alongside the rest of the fuel and burns at high temperatures. This is what’s meant
by “staged combustion.”
Because every drop of gasoline is finally turned into thrust, the raptor engine is significantly
more powerful and fuel efficient. However, when it comes to the raptor engine, the "plumbing
and setup" is considerably more complicated, because the high-pressure output of the turbine
must be transferred into the stream that feeds the combustion chamber.
The raptor, on the other hand, adheres to the “full-flow” idea; in this instance,
the process is repeated on the “other side” of the engine, utilizing a LOX-rich flow to
drive another turbine on the opposite side of the turbopump shaft. This also implies
that even if one turbine flow fails, the engine will continue to function, and both turbine
pumps will always run at full-flow, hence the name of the process.
So with this concept, there will be no need for the complex and difficult seal between
the two sides of the turbopump, since any leakage between the two sides makes no difference,
whereas, in a non-full-flow engine, such leakage would cause a problem. And the modelling of
the engine aids the turbopump to run much cooler than if it was only running fully-consumed
exhaust. All of these make the engine much more reliable for a long term, at the expense
of vastly “complicating the plumbing.”
The technique behind the setup and design of the raptor engine may be too broad to comprehend,
but spacex engineers have done a lot of in-depth studies to make the raptor reliable without
exploding. However, we won't be able to vet out future redundancies that may induce faulty
shifts in the engine's performance for the time being.
And, in terms of possible chemical pollutions that the raptor engine may emit to the environment,
because the engine runs on Methane and LOX, a much cleaner combustion is produced, with
no real soot problems, as the RP-1 has in the falcon 9 engine, and it is also a fuel
that can be produced using solar power, carbon dioxide, and water.
As a result, Methane fuel may be produced on Mars, which is primarily made of dead dinosaurs
– thus the RP-1 containing kerosene may not be produced on Mars since it will require
refining stages to extract the product. Another important reason why Elon Musk is forced to
use raptor engines for the spaceship and its rocket.
Again, the Raptor engine would burn at a considerably higher combustion chamber pressure – Elon
has stated that they are aiming for 300 Bar of pressure, which would result in specific
Impulse nearing 400 seconds, and that would be by far the most efficient LOX engine ever
made.
From most recent images of the “Starhopper” in Boca Chica show a dual-expansion nozzle
on the Raptor engines — a nozzle that is efficient in two separate flight regimes.
You won’t be wrong if you say that the raptor engine is a spark ignition system, and it
could be considered similar to a “spark plug” or “glow plug” ignition system.
The benefit is that you can restart the Raptor as long as you have fuel and oxidizer; there
are no additional consumables to run out of.
As a result, the Raptor has the most advanced, most powerful thrust-to-weight engine, as
well as the best efficiency for a non-LH2 engine. It can be refueled on Mars, throttled
from 20% to 100%, and is compact and inexpensive to manufacture on an assembly line.
This implies that SpaceX will be able to roll dozens of these engines off the line in Hawthorne,
which they will need to do because each Super Heavy rocket will have 29 or more of these
engines on the bottom, and each Starship will have seven more.
Each raptor engine can generate around half a million pounds of thrust, for a total push
of almost 15 million pounds, nearly double the thrust of the Saturn V at liftoff.
According to the data, the combined combination of the superheavy and starship could transport
a 150-ton payload to low-Earth orbit while being entirely reusable! To put it in context,
the entire ISS weighs around 380 tons. So spacex could launch the entire ISS in three
trips, with the third voyage carrying an empty Space Shuttle or two as bonus cargo.
Hence, the Raptor is all about the future of spaceflight: a long-use, reusable, low-maintenance
engine that can be refueled on Mars and transport a massive cargo into orbit or beyond. It's
basically designed to be a class unto itself.
So, what did you discover about the SpaceX Raptor engine after viewing this video?
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