What Makes the SpaceX Raptor Engines the Best Ever Made

How the Raptor Engine works
The Full-Flow staged combustion cycle works with two separate turbines. One is oxygen-rich and the other is fuel-rich, these two turbines drive the fuel and oxidizer turbopumps. The oxidizer turbine is driven by high-pressure gas generated by combusting nearly 100% of the oxidizer flow with a fraction of the fuel flow in an oxidizer-rich pre-burner. The fuel side uses the full fuel flow with a small fraction of oxidizer to generate the pre-burner gas that drives the fuel turbine.
The Raptor uses separate turbines and pumps on the fuel and oxidizer. The boost pumps deliver the necessary inlet pressure for the operation of the main turbopumps to create a , this is the highest achieved by a combustion chamber pressure of 270 barn operational liquid-fueled rocket engine.

Making fuel for Raptor on Mars
SpaceX made a very interesting design choice with the Raptor engine. See most rocket engines use RP-1 or rocket propellant as their fuel. RP-1 is basically a more refined version of jet fuel. In fact, previous engines made by SpaceX like the Merlin engine that powers the Falcon 9 also use RP-1. But for the raptor engine, SpaceX decided to use cryogenic liquid methane as fuel.
This was a little confusing at first. But SpaceX later explained the reason for going for an engine that runs on methane is that if we look at the geological landscape and atmosphere of Mars, we can see the abundance of CO2 and frozen water on Mars. SpaceX plans to make its own Methane on Mars by using a process called the Sabatier process. The Sabatier process uses carbon dioxide and water to make methane. Oxygen comes out as a byproduct.

This whole process comes under the philosophy of In-Situ Resource Utilization or ISRU. Which is a concept about ways you can use local resources to your advantage. And the raptor engine was made with ISRU in mind for Mars.

Performance


The sea-level Raptor engines have a weight-to-thrust ratio of about 107. And SpaceX is aiming for a final weight to thrust ratio of 200. This is really impressive if we compare it to other rockets. For comparison, Rocketdyne RS-25 has a weight to thrust ratio of 73. RS-25 powered both NASA’s space shuttle and their Space Launch System. Or if we take Energomash RD-180 that was used for the Atlas III and Atlas V rockets, it has a weight to thrust ratio of 78. Even Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine sits at a weight to thrust ratio of 80.

Cost
According to SpaceX, each raptor engine will cost them $ 2 million to manufacture. This is insanely cheap when compared to the Rocket Dyne RS-25 and the Rocket Dyne F-1 engine used by NASA that each cost $ 50 million and $30 million respectively to manufacture.
Starship’s raptor engine costs $ 1000 per 1 kN of thrust. In comparison, the RS-25 costs $ 26,881 per 1 kN of thrust produced. While the F1 costs $ 4,431 per 1 kN of thrust produced.
And since a single raptor engine is rated for 50 flights of reusability, we can bring that cost down to just $ 20 per 1 kN of thrust produced, which is absolutely insane. No other rocket engine comes near to this in terms of price.

Chamber Pressure
The raptor engine can also reach impressive chamber pressure numbers at 270 bars. But why is the chamber pressure important you ask? Generally, the higher the chamber pressure, the more thrust and potentially more efficiency the engine can gain. Higher chamber pressures let an engine be smaller for a given thrust level, also improving their thrust to weight ratio.

Reusability
In terms of reusability, we will see that most engines weren’t designed with reusability in mind. Usually, rocket engines were made to be good for one flight. But we see that the Raptor engine can do up to 50 flights. In comparison, the BE-4 engine by Blue Origin can only do 20. SpaceX wants its rockets to be reusable and be ready for consecutive flights with minimal servicing.

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