So to avoid that, I’ve personally whipped up some very simplified versions of the rocket engine cycles for us all to enjoy, which will hopefully help us grasp these concepts. Well, I’ve spent quite a while really studying up on this subject so I can lay down a good foundation in order to help us fully appreciate the Raptor engine, well and quite frankly, all rocket engines!Īnd if you’re anything like me, maybe you’ve stared at diagrams like this for hours and your head explodes every single time. BUT, if you’re anything like me, you keep hearing a lot of hype about the Raptor engine and you want to appreciate it… but you don’t even know where to start. In case you didn’t notice when you clicked on this article… this is a VERY VERY long article… sorry, not sorry. So by the end of this article hopefully we’ll have the context to know why the raptor engine is special, how it compares to other rocket engines, why it’s using methane and hopefully find out if the Raptor engine will be the new king of rocket engines… We’ll also break down and explain all the different engine cycle types so you know what the full flow staged combustion cycle is, how it works, and how it compares to the other cycles.
Now this topic can be really intimidating so in order to bring the Raptor engine into context, we’re going to do an overview of a few common types of rocket engine cycles then compare the Raptor to a few other common rocket engines, like SpaceX’s current work horse, the Merlin, The Space Shuttle’s RS-25, the RD-180, Blue Origin’s BE-4 and the F-1 engine.Īnd if that’s not enough, not only is SpaceX using a crazy engine cycle, they’re also going to be using Liquid Methane as their fuel, again something that no orbital rocket has ever used! So we’ll also go over the unique characteristics of liquid methane as a rocket fuel and see if we can figure out why SpaceX went with Methane for the Raptor engine. SpaceX’s new Raptor engine is a methane fueled full flow staged combustion cycle engine and it’s so hard to develop, no engine like this has ever flown before!
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