Re:SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocke...
by fallingknife on Monday August 02, 2021 @11:52PM
(#28045545)
> The first flight test of a full-flow staged-combustion engine occurred on 25 July 2019 when SpaceX flew their Raptor methalox FFSC engine at their South Texas Launch Site.[8]
(Yes, there are others listed, but SpaceX was first to actually fly something.)
Re:SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocke...
by dnautics on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @12:44AM
(#28045786)
thank you, the part about invention I care about is not ideation but actual reduction to practice.
Re:SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocke...
by dnautics on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @12:48AM
(#28045804)
The "long engine list" is only 3 deep, none of which besides the raptor made it past the test stand. What matters is full-flow-ness, not staged-ness, which means running neither oxidizer- or fuel- rich, for maximum efficiency. And in any case the russian engine was N2O2/UDMH and the american prior art was hydralox, so it's not like spacex didn't have to do a TON of figuring out to get a methalox FF engine up and running.
"Staged combustion (Замкнутая схема) was first proposed by Alexey Isaev in 1949. The first staged combustion engine was the S1.5400 (11D33) used in the Soviet planetary rocket, designed by Melnikov, a former assistant to Isaev.[1] About the same time (1959), Nikolai Kuznetsov began work on the closed cycle engine NK-9 for Korolev's orbital ICBM, GR-1. Kuznetsov later evolved that design into the NK-15 and NK-33 engines for the unsuccessful Lunar N1 rocket. The non-cryogenic N2O4/UDMH engine RD-253 using staged combustion was developed by Valentin Glushko circa 1963 for the Proton rocket."
And way down at the bottom of a long engine list spanning more than half a century...
"Raptor—SpaceX LCH4/LOX engine in development, first flown in 2019[19][20]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staged_combustion_cycle