HUGE NEWS! SpaceX FINALLY Testing NEW Raptor Engine 2.0...
While it is not quite as successful as the first static fire campaign of a full-scale Raptor 1 engine, which survived several tests. The first Raptor 2 prototype’s early demise is still a routine part of engine development and is the start of a process that should ultimately produce a Super Heavy booster with 50% more thrust than the next most powerful rocket ever flown.

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Prior to last weekend, it’s likely that competitor Blue Origin’s BE-4 – still in development, and hoped to one-day power ULA’s Vulcan, and the company’s own reusable New Glenn – was the most powerful methane/oxygen rocket engine ever tested.

BE-4 is designed to produce up to 244 tons, ~539,000 lbf of thrust. On its very first static fire, it appears that SpaceX’s first finished Raptor 2 prototype, has narrowly stolen BE-4’s crown, briefly generating main combustion chamber pressures of 321 bar, ~4650 psi, and as much as 245 tons ~540,000 lbf of thrust.

To BE-4’s credit, the engine at least as far as Blue Origin’s sparse public communications, didn’t destroy itself after its first full-thrust static fire. Elon Musk Said, Each Raptor 1 engine above produces 185 metric tons of force.

Raptor 2 just started production and will do 230 plus ton or over half a million pound. There’s also some ambiguity as Blue Origin’s own website pages, BE-4 thrust at 2400 kN, 550,000 lbf, when 2400 kilonewtons is actually equivalent to 539,000 lbf.

Regardless, designed to produce up to 230 tons, ~510,000 lbf of thrust in flight, Musk has said that Raptor 2 is a major improvement in simplification, over Raptor 1, which nominally produces up to 185 tons, ~410,000 lbf, of thrust at chamber pressures closer to 270 bar.

It’s not all that surprising, then, that the first Raptor 2 prototype ever completed exploded, when SpaceX pushed it to almost 107% of its maximum rated thrust, and main chamber pressure during its first test. Though impressive, SpaceX has technically pushed Raptor 1 prototypes further – and without failure.

Musk later indicated that there was some damage present, but a fairly young Raptor 1 engine still made it all the way up to 330 bar, ~4800 psi, and spent about 10 seconds at chamber pressures above 320 bar, without failure during an August 2020 stress test. Still, had the Raptor 2 prototype also made it to 330 bar, it would have produced around 252 tonsof thrust, 12% more than its Raptor 1 predecessor.

According to Musk, the main differences between Raptor 1 and Raptor 2 are much cleaner, plumbing and wire harnesses and a wider combustion chamber throat, which allows the engine to produce more thrust in roughly the same package, at the cost of a slight efficiency loss.

Over the last two years, the CEO has mentioned the possibility of a power-optimized Raptor variant, with up to 300 tons of thrust but in recent months. Musk says SpaceX has decided to keep the Raptor family as streamlined as possible and opted for just two variants, one with a sea-level nozzle Raptor Center and Boost, and one with a larger vacuum-optimized nozzle.

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