News

SpaceX Makes First Test-Fire of Interplanetary Raptor Engine

While Elon Musk is set to deliver a keynote tomorrow at the 67th annual International Astronautical Congress tomorrow, outlining his plans to colonize Mars (and even beyond), SpaceX are far from idle. As a show of just how far the company is with it’s plans to realize interplanetary travel, Musk today tweeted a few images taken from the first test firing of the Raptor interplanetary engine which is intended to be used on the newly renamed Interplanetary Transport System.

Commenting on the test, Musk noted that the chamber pressure in the Raptor runs three times that present in the Falcon 9’s Merlin engine, which gives it a significant amount of extra power. As for the numbers, he stated that the production targets for the Raptor engine include specific impulse of 382 seconds and thrust of around 3 meganewtons, while for comparison, the Merlin is only capable of specific impulse of 282 seconds (311 seconds in the vacuum of space) and a relatively weak 654 kilonewtons of thrust (0.6 MN) at sea level, or 716 kN (0.7 MN) in vacuum.

The second picture of the test ignition released by Musk is even more impressive than the first, with “mach diamonds” clearly visible in the exhaust column. These “mach diamonds” are visible distortion patterns that are the result of intense shock waves in the atmosphere and are also known as “shock diamonds”.

Musk’s formal address tomorrow will be part of the second day of the International Astronautical Congress in Mexico and is set to start at 2:30PM ET (7:30PM BST) and will hopefully include more details on the upcoming Interplanetary Transport System and its Raptor engine as well as the potential for more details on Musk’s plan for Mars and beyond.

Alexander Neil

Disqus Comments Loading...

Recent Posts

Twitch Now Banning All Content Focusing On Intimate Body Parts

As by now, I'm sure you are aware Twitch has decided to go ahead and…

9 hours ago

Seconds Patch of “Operation Medic Bag” For Payday 3 Released

I doubt many of you have been keeping up with Payday 3 which is understandable…

10 hours ago

MSI Announces SPATIUM M580 FROZR With A Huge Cooler

Today MSI has announced a new Gen 5 SSD, the SPATIUM M580 FROZR which comes…

10 hours ago

LENRUE PC Speakers, USB/USB-C Powered Computer Speakers with Loud Stereo Sound

Stereo and Noiseless - Without any noise! After multiple debugging, suppress static. Become clearer and…

11 hours ago

HP M27f Ultraslim Monitor 27 Inch

PICTURE-PERFECT IMMERSION – Work or play on a monitor that redefines high definition with its…

11 hours ago

Govee LED Light Bars, Smart WiFi RGBIC TV Backlight

Syncs With Your Music: With an internal high-sensitivity mic, Govee Flow Plus LED light bars…

11 hours ago