SpaceX has completed the first test fire of its interplanetary Raptor engine – the rocket CEO Elon Musk hopes will take us to Mars.
Musk tweeted a number of images of the test fire last night, as well as some details on the specifications of the new spacecraft propulsion system.
The images show the engine firing and the “Mach diamonds” produced – a standing wave pattern that appears in supersonic rocket engine exhaust plumes.
Elon Musk tweets image of the "Mach diamonds" produced in the test fire of the new Raptor rocket,... [+]
Musk said that the chamber pressure for the Raptor is almost three times that of the Merlin engine and “production goal is specific impulse of 382 seconds and thrust of 3MN (~310 metric tons) at 300 bar”.
SpaceX first announced the Raptor back in October 2012 when it said that the new engine would be several times the power of its Merlin 1 series. Unlike the RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen-propelled Merlin engines used in SpaceX Falcon vehicles, Raptor uses a mixture of liquid methane and liquid oxygen for fuel.
The Raptor aims to be a multi-stage engine that will be powerful enough to explore and potentially colonise Mars, but also cheap enough to do the job since it will also be reusable.
Up until 2015, the development of the engine was funded entirely by SpaceX, but earlier this year, the U.S. Air Force chipped in just under $34m to help develop the prototype of the upper stage, as designed for use in the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, with the rocket firm agreeing to spend just under $68m on the same project as part of the deal.
Because the rocket uses methane, that makes it a much better bet for Martian colonisation. With water underground and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, future Martian dwellers should be able to synthesise methane relatively easily. Any way in which Mars colonists can use the Red Planet’s resources instead of hauling more Earth baggage makes the whole concept of a trip there more technically and economically feasible.
Although SpaceX has talked about the Raptor on a number of occasions, the details have been somewhat vague, including how many of the engines will actually be necessary to power a trip to Mars.
But further details could be part of a long-awaited speech from Elon Musk on Tuesday about his plans for setting up a colony on Mars within a decade. The SpaceX founder is expected to outline the plans for the engine, spaceship and other technology needed to take tens of people to Mars at the International Astronautical Congress in Mexico.
The speech is entitled Making Humans a Multi-planetary Species and Musk himself has said that the whole thing is “going to sound pretty crazy”, so it’s unclear at this stage how much of the talk will be aspirational and how much will be rooted in existing or in-the-pipeline technologies.
