Elon Musk tweeted that SpaceX’s third-generation Raptor engine (Raptor V3) has completed experiments and can achieve 35 MPa pressure and 269 tons of thrust. This, combined with the 33 Raptor engines that will be used in the Starship Class 1 super heavy booster, will result in a total thrust of 8,878 tons (or 19.5 million pounds).
For reference, SpaceX’s first-generation Raptor engine can reach 185 tons of thrust, the second-generation can reach 230 tons of thrust (510,000 pounds), and the Saturn V is 3,408 tons (7.6 million pounds). In other words, the figures here are about 17% higher than the previous generation of Raptor engines, and the new generation of Starship boosters has 2.56 times the thrust of Saturn V.
On April 20, SpaceX conducted the first fully integrated test flight for Starship at its Starbase facility, and although the launch was only halfway successful, engineers still had the opportunity to gather critical data about the Raptor engine and rocket ship. The Raptor engine uses a special fuel called “Methalox,” a mixture of cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen.
That prototype starship was equipped with the Raptor V2 engine, which SpaceX says is “more powerful, has fewer parts,” is lighter than the V1 (the V1’s mass is about 2,000kg, the V2’s about 1,600kg), and has less visible plumbing and wiring.
The V1 is said to produce about 185 tons of thrust, while the V2 can produce about 230 tons of thrust, and the V2 costs about half as much to produce as the V1.
The company hopes to achieve higher performance/thrust with fewer components and to reduce manufacturing time as much as possible, which will be important for a lunar and Martian round trip and a base on Mars someday.
