Since the founding of SpaceX in 2002, the company has developed four families of rocket engines — Merlin, Kestrel, Draco and SuperDraco — and since 2016 developed the Raptor methane rocket engine and after 2020, a line of methalox thrusters.
History
In the first ten years of SpaceX, led by engineer Tom Mueller, the company developed a variety of liquid-propellant rocket engines, with at least one more of that type under development. As of October 2012, each of the engines developed to date—Kestrel, Merlin 1, Draco and Super Draco—had been developed for initial use in the SpaceX launch vehicles—Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy—or for the Dragon capsule.[1] Each main engine developed by 2012 has been Kerosene-based, using RP-1 as the fuel with liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidizer, while the RCS control thruster engines have used storable hypergolic propellants.
In November 2012, at a meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, United Kingdom, SpaceX announced that they planned to develop methane
Kerosene-based engines
SpaceX has developed two kerosene-based engines through 2013, the Merlin 1 and Kestrel, and has publicly discussed a much larger concept engine high-level design named Merlin 2. Merlin 1 powered the first stage of the Falcon 1 launch vehicle and is used both on the first and second stages of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles. The Falcon 1 second stage was powered by a Kestrel engine.
Merlin 1
Merlin 1 is a family of LOX/RP-1 rocket engines developed 2003–2012. Merlin 1A and Merlin 1B utilized an ablatively-cooled carbon-fiber composite nozzle. Merlin 1A produced 340 kN of thrust and was used to power the first stage of the first two Falcon 1 flights in 2006 and 2007. Merlin 1B had a somewhat more powerful turbo-pump, and generated more thrust, but was never flown on a flight vehicle before SpaceX's move to the Merlin 1C.
Methane-based engines
In November 2012, methalox engines came on the scene when SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced a new direction for propulsion side of the company: developing methane/LOX rocket engines.[2] SpaceX work on methane/LOX (methalox) engines is strictly to support the company's Mars technology development program. They had no plans to build an upper stage engine for the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy using methalox propellant. However, on November 7, 2018, Elon Musk tweeted, "Falcon 9 second stage will be upgraded to be like a mini-BFR Ship," which may imply the use of a Raptor engine on this new second stage. The focus of the new engine development program is exclusively on the full-size Raptor engine for the Mars-focused mission.[14]
Raptor
Raptor is a family of methane/liquid oxygen rocket engines under development by SpaceX since the late 2000s,[2]
Hypergolic engines
Draco
Draco are hypergolic liquid-propellant rocket engines that utilize a mixture of monomethyl hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. Each Draco thruster generates 400 N of thrust.[26] They are used as Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters on both the Dragon spacecraft, and on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle second-stage.[27]
SuperDraco
SuperDraco storable-propellant hypergolic engines generate 15000 lbf of thrust, making the SuperDraco the third most powerful engine developed by SpaceX, more than 200 times
See also
External links
- SpaceX Tour - Engines, November 11, 2010.
- SpaceX Systems Engineering presentation, September 28, 2012. Includes photograph of Merlin 1C and Merlin 1C vacuum engines side-by-side.
References
- Sara Morrison. There's a lot riding on Wednesday's SpaceX launch Vox, May 26, 2020, retrieved May 27, 2020^
- David Todd. SpaceX's Mars rocket to be methane-fuelled FlightGlobal, November 22, 2012, retrieved October 1, 2014^
- SpaceX Prepared Testimony by Jeffrey Thornburg