8 ms·

very impressive and competitive - if it were 2010 Note that the Raptor 3 is at 269 tons thrust (vis-à-vis 100 tons) and 350 bar chamber pressure (with 100 bar

very impressive and competitive - if it were 2010 Note that the Raptor 3 is at 269 tons thrust (vis-à-vis 100 tons) and 350 bar chamber pressure (with 100 bar for the Prometheus). The raptor is state-of-the-art full-flow staged combustion which is described as very tricky, Prometheus dated open-cycle. Raptor has been extensively tested and refined for years now and is getting very close to real flight heritage. Once Prometheus has flight models the Raptor will be at least a decade ahead, probably continuing to move rapidly. Taking a guess Raptor is probably much cheaper to produce and operate than Prometheus. It appears like a failed design by plan similar to a decision to continue expendable Arianes provided that 'there are only 10 or so launches per year' and implicitly that the system is set up to produce throw-away rockets that need lots of resources to produce each example.

sottol 3y ago
This is clearly geo-strategic. Also never hurts to have competition, see eg Amazon or Google what happens when the innovator becomes a monopoly.
- martin8412 3y ago
  The goal of ESA is to have independent space capabilities.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    Well actually their STATED GOAL was to be highly competitive in the international launch market as well. When Ariane 6 was greenlit there was much talk about that this investment needed to be made to be competitive and so on and so on. And of course now 10 years later its all like 'all we wanted is independent space access'. Of course if that was the case just flying Ariane 5 would have been better. Not having 3 different rockets would have been better.
  - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
    And sadly they're behind even China at this point, which is a bit of a joke if we're honest. ESA is a perfect example for what a bureaucratic monster Europe is these days. With a similar budget as CNSA but no clear vision and goals, the funds have mostly been wasted in recent years. They have the engineers, a good spaceport, the knowledge, etc... everything they'd need. But the stagnating political culture is holding them back. The US went through something similar, but at least with the private spaceflight boom the Americans seem to have snapped out of it.
    - martin8412 3y ago
      Which doesn't matter in the slightest? The goal is independence. Outsourcing to random startups is the opposite of independent. SpaceX or Blue Origin could be sold to Russia/China/North Korea tomorrow if the price is right.
cubefox 3y ago
After Ariane 5, ESA should probably award fixed price contracts to private European rocket startups rather than doing it together with Arianespace. But I suspect this wouldn't work well with EU funding, since those startups are only located in certain member states.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  EU startups would get huge 500k grants! Maybe even up to 2M. And the only thing they need to do in return is develop a reusable rocket engine. The reason nothing happens in Europe.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  There are a whole host of issues with the idea that ESA could do things like NASA does them now. Politics is one issue, but there are many others. > But I suspect this wouldn't work well with EU funding Just FYI, while EU funds some of ESA. ESA is independent and most of its budget is directly from member states.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    Direct funding is even worse. Why would Italy fund a German rocket startup? It seems money could only come from the respective state itself, not via ESA.
    - arlort 3y ago
      Italy and Germany pay ESA, ESA pays the contractors. But it's not like a layer of indirection means countries are magically unaware of where the money ends up It's not like ESA raises taxes on its own to pay for stuff
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      I mean a more logic situation was if Italy and Germany both pay ESA, and ESA contracts the launch vehicle from Germany but maybe the space station module from Italy. But one project often is to large a part of the budget so instead of doing it per project, the split each project into tiny pieces and hand that to each government. However this is also changing a bit. For Ariane 6 they specifically went away from that and allow industry (Ariane Group) to ignore that to a certain extent.
jackmott42 3y ago
It isn't at all clear yet that their open cycle engine is dated. Raptor has yet to prove reliable. Perhaps it will be, perhaps it will not. It is fundamentally harder to start the full flow staged combustion cycle, so time will tell if they can make this work as reliably as they have the merlin. SpaceX still makes all of their money with a simple open cycle rocket engine, and it burns RP1 which is expensive to clean up. Prometheus would be better in that regard.
carabiner 3y ago
This engine is going into their reusable demonstrator Callisto. Callisto is a copy* of SpaceX's Grasshopper that flew... 11 years ago * https://satelliteobservation.net/2018/06/02/cnes-director-of-launchers-talks-reusable-rockets https://satelliteobservation.net/2018/06/02/cnes-director-of... > Callisto is Grasshopper. The Chinese are also building a similar prototype, I have no problem saying we didn’t invent anything.
- 908B64B197 3y ago
  What's crazy is that, unlike this ESA engine and prototype rocket, Raptor and Starship R&D is all privately funded by SpaceX's profits. Starship will fly payloads to LEO before this European rocket reaches the Karman line.
  - martin8412 3y ago
    Considering that SpaceX keeps raising cash from private investors, I doubt that very much.
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      What do you doubt? Private investors are private funding. And of course they are raising cash, they have literally have the most advanced rocket and satellites projects in development at the same time. I can't find when CALLISTO is supposed to fly, some information says its 2022 but yeah I don't think they will make that. Starship isn't really in a race with CALLISTO so its kind of irrelevant.
      - carabiner 3y ago
        Yes 2022 launch date would be difficult. Some type of gravity field manipulation to create a closed time like curve would be required.
      - martin8412 3y ago
        If they have the most advanced rockets and satellites, then surely they can sell those products? The profit from the sales would fund research into their next big product. Apple didn't keep raising money to pay for the development of their next iPhone. They made sufficient cash from the sale of current generation to fund the development of the next generation. So if SpaceX needs to continue raising cash, they're selling the product at a loss, meaning that they're not in fact significantly cheaper than the competition. They're just dishonest about their pricing.
dotnet00 3y ago
As cool as Raptor is, I feel that ESA, as a government organization, making any effort towards a truly reusable engine is very good when over here in the US, NASA is still forced to pour billions into resuscitating the RS-25 while Boeing continues to embarass itself with Starliner and ULA rushes full speed into using reusable engines in the least effective ways.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  NASA doesn't need to invest in its own engines. RS-25 is just something congress forced on them. In reality the private companies are developing lots of engine, Raptor is just one example. I have documented this in my top level post. NASA and DoD are both committed to buying rockets on commercial rockets, and all of the competitors view engine development as a majorly important. There are at least 10 major reusable engines in development in the US. And of course Merlin is already flying and Prometheus has a very, very long way to go until to reach it. > while Boeing continues to embarass itself with Starliner True but that's a fixed price contract. Boeing is spending its own money to finish that program. NASA actually has crewed spaceflight, something Europe never even came close to. > ULA rushes full speed into using reusable engines in the least effective ways Not sure what you mean? ULA is adopting a pretty modern engine. That engine took a while to develop but that isn't so surprising. And it isn't ULAs fault.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    >NASA doesn't need to invest in its own engines. RS-25 is just something congress forced on them. In reality the private companies are developing lots of engine, Raptor is just one example. I have documented this in my top level post. NASA and DoD are both committed to buying rockets on commercial rockets, and all of the competitors view engine development as a majorly important. I was trying to convey that NASA hasn't been able to systematically embrace efficient reusability. Put differently, in the US, reusability is a thing *despite* the 'old guard' (NASA hasn't pushed the development of reusable vehicles itself, it has merely accepted them when private individuals got frustrated enough to do it themselves), while in Europe, it's promising that the ESA itself is invested in reusable rocketry. >Not sure what you mean? ULA is adopting a pretty modern engine. That engine took a while to develop but that isn't so surprising. And it isn't ULAs fault. I'm not taking a shot at BE-4, it's a modern engine, it's reusable and development delays are in the past now. What I'm saying is that ULA, for its so-called next-gen rocket, plans something as 'dumb' as 'SMART' reuse for those engines, which is a waste given their capabilities. Overall, my argument was that NASA and the contractors it has been mostly associated with, are far less invested in truly reusable rocketry (ie not the Shuttle) than Europe is right now. As far as Europe's crewed spaceflight capability goes, they do have experience building space station modules. So I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have never even "come close to" crewed spaceflight, but I agree that by my own argument, Europe is not as invested in crewed spaceflight than the US. To explain why this bothers me, as part of Artemis, NASA has repeatedly used the phrase "sustainable presence", yet the way they behave as an organization does not correspond with wanting to be sustainable. To me it's seeming increasingly more likely that Artemis too will fade out after a few landings.
renewiltord 3y ago
That thrust sounds low. That's around the capacity of the Vikas engine that the PSLV and GSLV use. The reusability is very cool. I just somehow assumed that with the state power of Europe and the established history of Ariane, they'd do better than Blue Origin and SpaceX.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  SpaceX produces the most rocket engines in the world by far and the are the best at it by a very. Europe is terrible at engine development. Vulcaine is simply open cycle engine and its development has been very slow compared to for example Merlin. Thier small stage engine will take over 25 years before flight. Europe has never built a large staged engine or a reusabile engine. The Soviets have built better engine in the 70 the Europe can now. There are many startups in the US that I would trust more to build a large engine then anybody in Europe.
bjornsing 3y ago
Why am I not surprised. This is the EU in a nutshell: ten years old copy cat technology. We’re turning into the new Soviet Union…
- martin8412 3y ago
  SpaceX is copying a 1960s Soviet design and also so far failing at it. Just like the Soviets did.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    There are only so many basic engine cycles, Soviets did many the first time. That does not mean anybody using the same cycle is copying the design. The Raptor is FFSC, the Soviets once build an engine of that cycle, but it was very different, using non cryo hypergolic fuel. Also to my knowlage that engine was never sold to the West and analyized like the Nk-33 and very few were ever produced. Other then vague knowlage that a FFSC engine was once tested in the Soviet Union we don't know much more. So they can actually be copied in a meaningful way. If Merlin is copying anything it would be the Ameican H-1. Of course one you look below the very very abstract surface level, these engines are all very different. Saying SpaceX is copying 1960 Soviet designs is just wrong.

sottol 3y ago

This is clearly geo-strategic. Also never hurts to have competition, see eg Amazon or Google what happens when the innovator becomes a monopoly.

martin8412 3y ago
The goal of ESA is to have independent space capabilities.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Well actually their STATED GOAL was to be highly competitive in the international launch market as well. When Ariane 6 was greenlit there was much talk about that this investment needed to be made to be competitive and so on and so on. And of course now 10 years later its all like 'all we wanted is independent space access'. Of course if that was the case just flying Ariane 5 would have been better. Not having 3 different rockets would have been better.
- trompetenaccoun 3y ago
  And sadly they're behind even China at this point, which is a bit of a joke if we're honest. ESA is a perfect example for what a bureaucratic monster Europe is these days. With a similar budget as CNSA but no clear vision and goals, the funds have mostly been wasted in recent years. They have the engineers, a good spaceport, the knowledge, etc... everything they'd need. But the stagnating political culture is holding them back. The US went through something similar, but at least with the private spaceflight boom the Americans seem to have snapped out of it.
  - martin8412 3y ago
    Which doesn't matter in the slightest? The goal is independence. Outsourcing to random startups is the opposite of independent. SpaceX or Blue Origin could be sold to Russia/China/North Korea tomorrow if the price is right.

cubefox 3y ago

After Ariane 5, ESA should probably award fixed price contracts to private European rocket startups rather than doing it together with Arianespace. But I suspect this wouldn't work well with EU funding, since those startups are only located in certain member states.

Aeolun 3y ago
EU startups would get huge 500k grants! Maybe even up to 2M. And the only thing they need to do in return is develop a reusable rocket engine. The reason nothing happens in Europe.
panick21_ 3y ago
There are a whole host of issues with the idea that ESA could do things like NASA does them now. Politics is one issue, but there are many others. > But I suspect this wouldn't work well with EU funding Just FYI, while EU funds some of ESA. ESA is independent and most of its budget is directly from member states.
- cubefox 3y ago
  Direct funding is even worse. Why would Italy fund a German rocket startup? It seems money could only come from the respective state itself, not via ESA.
  - arlort 3y ago
    Italy and Germany pay ESA, ESA pays the contractors. But it's not like a layer of indirection means countries are magically unaware of where the money ends up It's not like ESA raises taxes on its own to pay for stuff
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    I mean a more logic situation was if Italy and Germany both pay ESA, and ESA contracts the launch vehicle from Germany but maybe the space station module from Italy. But one project often is to large a part of the budget so instead of doing it per project, the split each project into tiny pieces and hand that to each government. However this is also changing a bit. For Ariane 6 they specifically went away from that and allow industry (Ariane Group) to ignore that to a certain extent.

jackmott42 3y ago

It isn't at all clear yet that their open cycle engine is dated. Raptor has yet to prove reliable. Perhaps it will be, perhaps it will not. It is fundamentally harder to start the full flow staged combustion cycle, so time will tell if they can make this work as reliably as they have the merlin. SpaceX still makes all of their money with a simple open cycle rocket engine, and it burns RP1 which is expensive to clean up. Prometheus would be better in that regard.

carabiner 3y ago

This engine is going into their reusable demonstrator Callisto. Callisto is a copy* of SpaceX's Grasshopper that flew... 11 years ago * https://satelliteobservation.net/2018/06/02/cnes-director-of-launchers-talks-reusable-rockets https://satelliteobservation.net/2018/06/02/cnes-director-of... > Callisto is Grasshopper. The Chinese are also building a similar prototype, I have no problem saying we didn’t invent anything.

908B64B197 3y ago
What's crazy is that, unlike this ESA engine and prototype rocket, Raptor and Starship R&D is all privately funded by SpaceX's profits. Starship will fly payloads to LEO before this European rocket reaches the Karman line.
- martin8412 3y ago
  Considering that SpaceX keeps raising cash from private investors, I doubt that very much.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    What do you doubt? Private investors are private funding. And of course they are raising cash, they have literally have the most advanced rocket and satellites projects in development at the same time. I can't find when CALLISTO is supposed to fly, some information says its 2022 but yeah I don't think they will make that. Starship isn't really in a race with CALLISTO so its kind of irrelevant.
    - carabiner 3y ago
      Yes 2022 launch date would be difficult. Some type of gravity field manipulation to create a closed time like curve would be required.
    - martin8412 3y ago
      If they have the most advanced rockets and satellites, then surely they can sell those products? The profit from the sales would fund research into their next big product. Apple didn't keep raising money to pay for the development of their next iPhone. They made sufficient cash from the sale of current generation to fund the development of the next generation. So if SpaceX needs to continue raising cash, they're selling the product at a loss, meaning that they're not in fact significantly cheaper than the competition. They're just dishonest about their pricing.

dotnet00 3y ago

As cool as Raptor is, I feel that ESA, as a government organization, making any effort towards a truly reusable engine is very good when over here in the US, NASA is still forced to pour billions into resuscitating the RS-25 while Boeing continues to embarass itself with Starliner and ULA rushes full speed into using reusable engines in the least effective ways.

panick21_ 3y ago
NASA doesn't need to invest in its own engines. RS-25 is just something congress forced on them. In reality the private companies are developing lots of engine, Raptor is just one example. I have documented this in my top level post. NASA and DoD are both committed to buying rockets on commercial rockets, and all of the competitors view engine development as a majorly important. There are at least 10 major reusable engines in development in the US. And of course Merlin is already flying and Prometheus has a very, very long way to go until to reach it. > while Boeing continues to embarass itself with Starliner True but that's a fixed price contract. Boeing is spending its own money to finish that program. NASA actually has crewed spaceflight, something Europe never even came close to. > ULA rushes full speed into using reusable engines in the least effective ways Not sure what you mean? ULA is adopting a pretty modern engine. That engine took a while to develop but that isn't so surprising. And it isn't ULAs fault.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  >NASA doesn't need to invest in its own engines. RS-25 is just something congress forced on them. In reality the private companies are developing lots of engine, Raptor is just one example. I have documented this in my top level post. NASA and DoD are both committed to buying rockets on commercial rockets, and all of the competitors view engine development as a majorly important. I was trying to convey that NASA hasn't been able to systematically embrace efficient reusability. Put differently, in the US, reusability is a thing *despite* the 'old guard' (NASA hasn't pushed the development of reusable vehicles itself, it has merely accepted them when private individuals got frustrated enough to do it themselves), while in Europe, it's promising that the ESA itself is invested in reusable rocketry. >Not sure what you mean? ULA is adopting a pretty modern engine. That engine took a while to develop but that isn't so surprising. And it isn't ULAs fault. I'm not taking a shot at BE-4, it's a modern engine, it's reusable and development delays are in the past now. What I'm saying is that ULA, for its so-called next-gen rocket, plans something as 'dumb' as 'SMART' reuse for those engines, which is a waste given their capabilities. Overall, my argument was that NASA and the contractors it has been mostly associated with, are far less invested in truly reusable rocketry (ie not the Shuttle) than Europe is right now. As far as Europe's crewed spaceflight capability goes, they do have experience building space station modules. So I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have never even "come close to" crewed spaceflight, but I agree that by my own argument, Europe is not as invested in crewed spaceflight than the US. To explain why this bothers me, as part of Artemis, NASA has repeatedly used the phrase "sustainable presence", yet the way they behave as an organization does not correspond with wanting to be sustainable. To me it's seeming increasingly more likely that Artemis too will fade out after a few landings.

renewiltord 3y ago

That thrust sounds low. That's around the capacity of the Vikas engine that the PSLV and GSLV use. The reusability is very cool. I just somehow assumed that with the state power of Europe and the established history of Ariane, they'd do better than Blue Origin and SpaceX.

panick21_ 3y ago
SpaceX produces the most rocket engines in the world by far and the are the best at it by a very. Europe is terrible at engine development. Vulcaine is simply open cycle engine and its development has been very slow compared to for example Merlin. Thier small stage engine will take over 25 years before flight. Europe has never built a large staged engine or a reusabile engine. The Soviets have built better engine in the 70 the Europe can now. There are many startups in the US that I would trust more to build a large engine then anybody in Europe.

bjornsing 3y ago

Why am I not surprised. This is the EU in a nutshell: ten years old copy cat technology. We’re turning into the new Soviet Union…

martin8412 3y ago
SpaceX is copying a 1960s Soviet design and also so far failing at it. Just like the Soviets did.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  There are only so many basic engine cycles, Soviets did many the first time. That does not mean anybody using the same cycle is copying the design. The Raptor is FFSC, the Soviets once build an engine of that cycle, but it was very different, using non cryo hypergolic fuel. Also to my knowlage that engine was never sold to the West and analyized like the Nk-33 and very few were ever produced. Other then vague knowlage that a FFSC engine was once tested in the Soviet Union we don't know much more. So they can actually be copied in a meaningful way. If Merlin is copying anything it would be the Ameican H-1. Of course one you look below the very very abstract surface level, these engines are all very different. Saying SpaceX is copying 1960 Soviet designs is just wrong.