3 ms·
Are you certain of that? It's mentioned in a few places (including Wikipedia), but I've not seen any SpaceX sources saying this was a sub-scale test article.
by dasmoth 10y ago
Are you certain of that? It's mentioned in a few places (including Wikipedia), but I've not seen any SpaceX sources saying this was a sub-scale test article. On the contrary, we've heard Elon say that because of the very high chamber pressure, you can get the thrust they're looking for out of an engine about the size of a Merlin. And while it's hard to be 100% sure, from the pictures I've seen the unit tested at the weekend looks kind-of Merlin sized. Not conclusive, of course, but likewise I've not yet seen any hard evidence to support the idea that it is sub-scale.
- ygra 10y agoAdmittedly, I was going by Wikipedia and r/SpaceX. The latter tended to imply that the source was conversations with employees, but I don't know of a quotable source either. So might in fact be wrong. Elon tweeting something that might imply the same size of the engine, albeit with a qualifier (»Chamber pressure is almost 3X Merlin, so engine is about the same size for a given area ratio«). Naïvely dividing booster diameter by the number of engines across the diameter yields 1.2 m for Merlin 1D and 1.7 m for Raptor (although the ITS seems to have a bit of space around the center cluster since only those gimbal).