nobody is talking about the nightmare
dancing in front of elon musk and spacex
we must express thoughts to comprehend
how things will operate beneath the
super heavy rockets even though many
spacex engineers are professionals and
are well-versed in their respective
departments to face challenging issues
one thing that has sparked our interests
is how the super heavy booster can fire
up 29 raptor engines without blowing up
let's find out in this video if you have
a chance to look at the super heavy
rocket you'll be able to witness how
massive spacex built the structure it is
undoubtedly a stunning sight to behold
the dry mass of the super heavy without
propellant ranges from 158 000 to 199
500 kilograms let's put that in
perspective with what we're all used to
in real life using an elephant as an
illustration because a big elephant
weighs
5443.108 kilograms the weight of a
starship both super heavy and second
stage starship is around 199 500
kilograms hence sending one starship
into space is equivalent to transporting
37 big elephants from earth to space
consider how cumbersome that would be
that's the weight we're talking about
the super heavy is so massive that it
can only be lifted and moved into the
air by cranes consider this unbelievable
scenario spacex and elon musk wish to
carry this massive vessel to mars yet no
crane can move it from earth to mars for
the super heavy to get so far into space
it will need a reliable engine to ensure
the rocket's safety without exploding it
must be a strong engine and only the
raptor will be employed to accomplish
this feat also anything that goes up
must surely come down due to
gravitational force this gigantic
superheavy with insane mass would battle
gravitational force and pierce through
the thick atmosphere to transport itself
to mars and maybe other planets as a
result the force propelling the starship
into space must be greater than the
force operating in the opposite
direction as it travels upward spacex
has conducted multiple simulation tests
and determined that lifting this massive
structure will need the use of 29 to 33
raptor engines another consideration is
how spacex will deal with the heat
created by these 29 raptor engines once
they all fire up this was a difficult
hurdle for spacex to overcome but 29
engines will combust flawlessly as
predicted because of regenerative
cooling so what exactly is regenerative
cooling regenerative cooling is a method
of cooling an engine bypassing some or
all of the propellant via tubes channels
or a jacket around the combustion
chamber or nozzle but while this
technology will be utilized to minimize
heat created during combustion what
about the heat generated between two or
more engines after a long hour of firing
the 29 engines how can spacex keep the
heat between nearby engines from melting
and exploding let's explore an excellent
answer to these questions the orbital
launch pad in boca chica currently does
not have a flame diverter and the
launcher is just 20 meters above the
ground as a result massive amounts of
heat and energy are sent straight into
the concrete when the engines fire this
has caused issues for spacex in the past
with large pieces of concrete being
blown back up into the engine
compartment ultimately damaging engines
spacex coats the concrete with martite
an ablative coating to prevent this this
shields the concrete from damage and
prevents it from breaking apart and
flying into the engine bay the orbital
launch pad will also be equipped with a
massive water deluge system spraying
water right underneath the engines
during the launch process contrary to
popular belief the water isn't simply
there to cool down when it's hot one of
its primary objectives is to limit the
sound energy generated by the engines
which may be exceedingly harmful to both
the rocket and the launch site another
issue that spacex must consider is the
sheer amount of load that the rocket
will be under when all 29 engines are
powered on at once the thrust pack
located at the bottom of the booster is
intended to transfer all of the force
generated by the engines to the walls of
the booster which is why it's located at
the bottom of the booster the engine
ignition will be staggered to provide a
progressive ramp up to maximum
performance this is something that
spacex has already accomplished with the
falcon 9 and falcon heavy rockets and
it's expected to be implemented in the
starship according to nasa the falcon
9's opposing engines are fired in pairs
150 milliseconds apart allowing the
rocket to achieve peak power in less
than half a second an ignition process
identical to that used for super heavy
would take approximately two seconds to
light an engine redundancy is one of the
primary reasons for having so many
engines rather than just a few bigger
engines on a single booster if numerous
engines fail during the launch or
landing the rocket will not be destroyed
since the other engines will be able to
compensate for the loss of thrust by
turning on or increasing the throttle
interestingly this is a principle that
falcon 9 follows as well for instance
when a merlin engine failed during
starlink launch last year the falcon 9
was able to deliver its cargo into the
proper orbit proving that failure is not
inevitable in space although this did
not impact the booster landing the
engine that failed was unable to slow
the vehicle down enough to make it safe
on the ground because only three engines
are capable of performing the landing
burn on the falcon 9 there is nothing
that can be done if one of them fails to
ignite however super heavy has many more
engines than the falcon 9. it will have
a significantly broader throttle range
allowing it to hover the more parts you
have in engineering the greater the
chance that the entire system may fail
failure of even 1 out of 30 engines on a
space rocket may be devastating while
the failure of two engines almost
guarantees disaster to put it in another
way the more engines you put on a rocket
the more likely it is to fail
probability laws begin to act against
you each engine is immensely complex
with several pipes valves and turbo
pumps the engines are subjected to
extreme heat and mechanical strain
failure may take many forms including
the engine gently shut down however
instead of turbo bomb sustained
catastrophic damage scattering debris
fuel line board into a combustion
chamber on another engine and so on all
of these despicable actions finally
result in a launch pad explosion no
viable design has ever involved such a
large number of engines the saturn v had
five f1 engines each with four
combustion chambers and they shared a
turbo pump and piping system ariane 5
had a single engine whereas proton had
six the falcon 9 has 9 merlin engines
which are more straightforward than the
raptor the soviet n1 rocket constructed
for a moon program was the only rocket
that attempted to employ 30 engines
because the ussr lacked an engine
capable of competing with the american
f1 in terms of thrust and economy n1 was
equipped with 30 smaller nk-33 engines
the drawbacks of such a design were well
known to russian engineers so they
devised a sophisticated chord system
which stands for coordination
of engine operation to coordinate work
on the first three rockets cord used an
analog computer and on the fourth a
digital computer the control system
could theoretically shut down one or two
malfunctioning engines while still
allowing the rocket to use the remaining
28 to push a mission to the moon as with
the 29 raptor engine in use
one engine failing or exploding might
damage the other engines to cause a
launch failure spacex has employed 27
merlin engines on falcon heavy launches
but each merlin engine is protected from
the others by blast barriers on super
heavy 4 there is no blast wall between
the raptors but spacex must be satisfied
that any failed engines can be shot down
before exploding according to spacex
following several fit checks hardware
testing and static test burns of the
super heavy boosters 29 raptor engines
this full stack will fly into orbit to
test the super heavy's lift capability
and starship's re-entry capabilities the
first orbital flight of the starship was
inspired by the saturn v rocket's maiden
test flight engineers chose to send all
three rocket stages into orbit rather
than just a piece of it this concept was
a fantastic approach to ensure that all
the systems were working correctly
together a procedure known as an
integrated test the starship is a
physics-driven perspective on rocketry
it has a mission to accomplish with no
involvement from vote-seeking senators a
luxury that only a private corporation
can afford as long as it's sponsored by
a motivated billionaire this year
promises to be amazing as starship
prototype manufacturing ramps up and new
milestones are achieved every week
spacex isn't hesitant to sacrifice a
prototype to collect valuable data and
you can bet that things will be pushed
to their limits what type of cooling
system is used in assembling the super
heavy's 29 raptor engines you can also
check why spacex super heavy booster is
the biggest monster so far it's amazing