SpaceX Raptor 2 Engines

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SpaceX Raptor 2 engines were achieving 230 tf (510,000 lbf) of thrust consistently by February 2022. SpaceX is tuning engine parameters and design to achieve at least 250 tf (550,000 lbf). Elon Musk indicated that the engine production cost was approximately half that of the Raptor 1 version SpaceX had been using in 2018–2021. SpaceX is aiming for the cost-per-tonne of thrust of each Raptor to be under $1,000 — so around $250,000 to produce.

SpaceX is building one Raptor 2 engine per day and the factory has the capacity to reach about four engines per day.

SpaceX completed Starship Flight Test mission in April 20, 2023. The Super Heavy had 33 Raptor 2 engines during the launch but 3 of those had already failed by the time the rocket started to lift from the launchpad.

SpaceX has two Raptor engine factories.

Phase I of the second factory was an investment of $100 million in real and personal property improvements by June 30, 2024, along with a minimum of 250 new full-time jobs by June 30, 2025.

The city-county EDC provided a Phase I incentive of $4 million.

Phase II will require the company to invest another $50 million in real and personal property improvements by June 30, 2025, along with a minimum of 150 new full-time jobs and Phase I facility investment by June 30, 2026.

16 thoughts on “SpaceX Raptor 2 Engines”

  2. Man … though I googled it, nowhere is ‘tf’ readily decoded from its acronym.

    Well, then I did some division: 510,000 / 230 = 2,217. What’s that close to? Hmmm… pounds imperial per metric ton. OK. tf = ‘tons’ of ‘force’.

    Generally though, we either use pounds (obsolete, but common in rocketry) or one of the variations on newtons. Newtons, kilonewtons are very common. And a newton being the unit of force that accelerates one kilogram to one meter-per-second, in one second. Every kilogram here on Planet Dirt exerts a downward (Earth centric) force of approximately 9.81 newtons.

    What a relief.
    Next time though … maybe include (tf = metric tons of force) in the article somewhere.

    GoatGuy

    • Thrust in space should be equal to tonne-force ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton-force ) on Earth, means tonne (mass accelerated with gravity (force), 9.81 meter-per-second in one second, 1000kg, ~9810newtons_Earth, ~?Newtons_space) on a planet, massively influenced by homo sapiens (these decades).

  3. The 3 engines that were not running at lift-off were never started. According to SpaceX the flight control system evaluated them as “unhealthy” just before ignition and did not ignite them. Interestingly, -3 engines at launch was the limit set for this launch before aborting.

  4. They must improve them to become more reliable. I think that Methalox engines are giving them way more problems than they anticipated.

      • They’re already about as reliable as standard rocket engines. The only reason they don’t seem that way is because the booster has 33 of them, which means that they have to be a lot MORE reliable than standard engines to be able to count on them all running at the same time.

        I think they will get there, though: The genius of mass producing engines is that it gives you enough of them to actually track down failure modes, and know that you’ve found them. When you’re only producing a few engines you never know if this particular engine works because you got the process for producing them right, or just because of dumb luck.

        Modern quality control techniques for mass production require you to actually be engaged in mass production, to have the numbers to base your statistics on.

        • I don’t agree here. Merlin reliability and flight record is legendary. I hope it stays so.

          These Raptors are giving them hard time. Even if there are more of them stacked together they need to be way more reliable. Raptor is in development quite some time and still they are problematic. I think that even with stacking multiple ones together, they are still less reliable than any other successful rocket.

          They need way better reliability to be rapidly reused.

          • Sure, Merlin has achieved unusual reliability, at the moment Raptor is just usually reliable, which isn’t good enough when you’re flying nearly 40 engines per launch, 33 on the booster and 6 on the Starship. They need to have 98% reliability just to have a 50-50 chance of them all working, with that many engines.

            But I do think they’ll get there, because they’re manufacturing enough to actually be able to find all the common failure modes and fix them.

        • Having high thrust to weight as a goal parameter allows for some engines to be turned off during launch, preserving Go commands and allowing data to continue being recorded.

    • Already been/being addressed, the engines (and rocket too) used in this test were the older & less consistent than the current crop of v2 engines elon & spacex have said.

  5. I believe he’s said that they’re actually slowing the production line down at this point, so that they can concentrate on improvements, because they’ve accumulated more raptor engines right now than they have an immediate use for.

    He also said that the Raptors on the recently tested booster were an earlier revision, and the next booster has already been equipped with an improved model.

    • Correct, Elon says they are up to their noses in Raptors so will slow down a bit. Additionally, the launch used hydraulic TVC Raptors, while the current production is using electric TVC.

    • And that’s one reason why they didn’t even consider landing the booster. The engines weren’t worth it.

      • Landing was not part of the test. Landing would just add more weight and complexity. Clearing the tower and flying was more important

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