Earlier, Ilon Musk provided photos of the SpaceX spacecraft of the new generation. Now he has decided to boast of the Raptor engine, which once will tear a rocket from our planet.
On January 31, Ilon Musk posted on Twitter several photos of the Raptor engine for the new Starship spacecraft. The company is preparing to launch in Texas. In one of the photographs, a worker stands next to the engine, which makes it possible to evaluate the impressive dimensions of the engine.
The development of Raptor took years, but Mask said that the last radically revised version came out in December. The moon is an important goal in space exploration. Last year, Ilon Musk announced that the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maesawa had bought up all the seats in the tourist trip planned for 2023 around the moon. SpaceX reports that Starship will have 7 new engines. Now the company has a “bunker” prototype made of stainless steel, designed for testing at takeoff and landing. The team hopes to submit an orbital version by the middle of this year.
As a result, the spacecraft should launch in tandem with the super-heavy rocket Big Falcon Rocket (BFR). It uses about 31 Raptor engines. But Musk says that they will use less on the test firing (in case of an explosion). In the future, Starship will be able to deliver people to Mars and help create the first outpost on the planet.
