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SpaceX celebrated a milestone that brings the company’s Starship rocket closer to Mars.
CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that the Raptor engine did not explode after reaching a new high pressure in the combustion chamber during a controlled combustion test.
The engine, a crucial part of the Starship rocket, hit a record 330 bar – previous engines only managed to maintain 290-300 bar.
The announcement follows the Starship’s first test flight, which jumped 500 feet over the company’s development facilities in Boca Chica, Texas.
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The Raptor engine did not explode after reaching a new high pressure in the combustion chamber during a controlled combustion test. The engine, a crucial part of the Starship rocket, hit a record 330 bar – previous engines only managed to maintain 290-300 bar
Musk has had many ups and downs with his beloved Starship rocket and components, but is taking them fast.
The billionaire flocked to Twitter with the latest news that “ the Raptor engine just hit 330 bar chamber pressure without exploding, ” the tweet read.
Musk has also released an engine chamber pressure graph to confirm a successful push to record levels, Teslarati reports.
Musk explained that 300 bars on the Raptor produced half a million pounds, or 225 pounds, of force.
Elon Musk shared an image of the engine as he broke a world record
The Raptor is SpaceX’s “ radically engineered ” engine that will one day power the Super Heavy rocket and Starship on missions to the moon and beyond.
The component, first unveiled in 2019, has been subjected to extreme pressure testing to ensure it is capable and secure enough to take humans into space.
Prior to this milestone, SpaceX’s goal was to launch Starship into the air for its first “jump”.
However, the event, which took place on August 3, was cleaned up due to the failure of the turbopump’s start valve to open during tests which in turn triggered an automatic abort – but the The failure didn’t stop Musk from a second attempt.
The next day, the Raptor, Starship, and other components all met takeoff targets.
At 5 p.m. CT, Starship, or SN5, jumped nearly 500 feet over the Texas Test Facility.
The large nine-story metal cylinder set its single Raptor engine on fire and slowly rose into the air before gently returning to the ground and landing upright a short distance from where it was launched.
However, SpaceX has seen four of its Starship prototypes explode – the most recent fiasco erupted in May.
Prototype serial number 4 vanished in a fireball at SpaceX’s Texas site shortly after the engine was ignited for a pressure test.
The engine produced 225 tons of pressure. Pictured is an image from 2019 when Elon Musk first unveiled the engine
The Raptor engine, first unveiled in 2019, has been put through extreme pressure testing to ensure it’s capable and secure enough to take humans into space.
The SN4 had passed several important milestones during development, including a pressurization test that foiled previous models.
The first rocket was tested in 2019, prototype Mk1, but was engulfed in flames during a cryogenic pressure test.
The announcement follows the Starship’s first test flight, which jumped 500 feet over the company’s development facilities in Boca Chica, Texas.
The second rocket, dubbed serial number 1 (SN1), suffered another pressure test when it failed to contain its liquid nitrogen.
However, this time the stainless steel cylinder lifted off the mount and collided.
And the third time SpaceX experienced its third catastrophic failure was in April – again the Starship prototype imploded during the cryogenic pressure test.
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