SpaceX Set to Test Raptor Engine Components at NASA Stennis

SpaceRef.biz ^ | 24APR2014 | Marc Boucher

[Jack Hydrazine]

Nearly six months after announcing that SpaceX would be testing Raptor engine components at NASA's Stennis Space Center, a ribbon cutting ceremony this past Monday officially unveiled the newly refurbished E-2 test stand.

SpaceX has been working on the Raptor methane-fueled rocket engine since 2009. The new engine, a reusable engine is destined to be used in future versions of the Falcon Heavy and in the long term for the notional SpaceX Mars Colonial Transporter.

Testing is set to begin within the coming days after the E-2 test stand activation is completed a spokesperson for SpaceX confirmed to SpaceRef.

SpaceX will test Raptor injectors and combustion chambers during the initial phase at E-2 Cell 1. According to SpaceX they are still in the very early stages of the Raptor engine development program and this initial test phase will last 12 to 24 months with larger components to be tested afterwards presumably at their rocket engine development facility in McGregor, Texas.

"This is a great partnership between NASA and SpaceX," Stennis Center Director Rick Gilbrech said. "These types of activities are opening new doors of commercial space exploration for companies. SpaceX is another example of the outstanding progress America's commercial space industry is making, and we are happy to welcome them as our newest commercial test customer."

"SpaceX is proud to bring the Raptor testing program to NASA's Stennis Space Center and the great state of Mississippi," said Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX. "In partnership with NASA, SpaceX has helped create one of the most advanced engine testing facilities in the world, and we look forward to putting the stand to good use."

The ribbon cutting ceremony comes just a few days after SpaceX revealed it had completed the first test flight of the Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) at their rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas.

[Rockitz]

Be careful. Elon doesn’t understand how much risk costs yet. One failure and his launch insurance rates go through the roof and he squanders whatever launch cost advantage he currently has.

[SunkenCiv]

Being given the brush off, more or less, by the existing aerospace companies, who thought the money Musk offered for the kind of performance he demanded was laughable, really has paid off. When Zero got in and the NASA budget was really chainsaw massacred, those same companies went back to Musk, now needing work, and were told, we don’t need you, we did it ourselves.

[Jack Hydrazine]

XCOR Methane Rocket static test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dumolLDfWw4
(crank up the speakers for this one.)

LOX/LH2 does have a better Isp than LOX/RP-1 but you run into more complications using LH2 such as metal embrittlement because it is so much colder than most cryogenic fluids. So it was a tradeoff they thought would work for them.

But SpaceX figured out how to handle methane plus they are tackling the closed combustion cycle increasing thrust significantly.

[Jack Hydrazine]

And with Musk going to court and getting the Russian RD-180 engines blocked from being sold to Aerojet for the Atlas V this is going put the squeeze on Aerojet and ULA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180
2014 supply chain disruption

Doubts about the reliability of the supply chain for the RD-180 arose following the Ukraine crisis in March 2014. For over 13 years since the engine was first used in the Atlas III launch vehicle in 2000, there was never any serious jeopardy to the engine supply, despite an uneven record of US-Russian relations since the Cold War. But worsening relations between the west and Russia after March have led to several blockages, including a short-lived judicial injunction from the US courts that were unclear on the scope of the US sanctions on importing the Russian engine.[2]

On May 13, 2014, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced that “Russia will ban the United States from using Russian-made rocket engines for military launches”[3]—a frequent payload of the ULA Atlas V launch vehicle which powers its first stage with two RD-180 engines that are expended after each flight.[4] In response, the US Air Force has asked the Aerospace Corporation to begin evaluating alternatives for powering the Atlas 5 booster stage with non-RD-180 engines. Early estimates are that it would require five or more years to replace the RD-180 on the Atlas V.[5]

With questions swirling, ULA hastens Delta 4 production
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1405/19delta4/#.U3v9oihr2og

Atlas 5 rocket set for launch amid cloud of controversy
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av046
“So, then, it is necessary to observe that in fact there is no current alternative. Worldwide, there is no one-million pound-class LOX/hydrocarbon-engine, and anyone who has been out on a test stand testing their own rocket engine knows this is at best a five- or six-year process, and it does not matter if you are returning to production or building your own. So, there is no current alternative and there will not be one for five or six years, best case.” /preview.html#.U3v94Chr2og
(I’m sure SpaceX will position themselves to fill the gap.)

Rogozin hurls salvo of attacks on U.S. space program
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1405/13rogozin/#.U3v-uihr2og

[Jack Hydrazine]

And increasing Isp.

[PA Engineer]

The spacecraft has been notionally described as using a large water store to help shield occupants from space radiation

Darn. That was my idea decades ago. Should have patented it and shashimied it every 14 years.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Future Spacecraft Could Protect Crews With Walls Made of Water
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-09/future-spacecraft-could-protect-crews-walls-made-water

Radiation shields, new engines mandatory for Mars
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/msl/130530rad/#.U3wEwyhr2og

[Steely Tom]

I believe that the spaceship on which much of the action of Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars used water as a radiation shield. It was written in the early 1960s.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Just giving everyone a heads for the next launch in two days.

Rocket: Atlas 5 (AV-046)
Variant: AV-401
Payload: NROL-33
Date: May 22, 2014
Period: 9:05 a.m. EDT/6:05 a.m. PDT
Site: SLC-41, Cape Canaveral, Florida

Atlas 5 rocket set for launch amid cloud of controversy
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av046/preview.html#.U3wFtihr2og

Can be viewed here.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av046/status.html

Weather forecasters continue to project an 80 percent chance of favorable conditions for liftoff.

Please pass this on to those FReepers who might be interested.

[Jack Hydrazine]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podkayne_of_Mars

Podkayne of Mars is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialised in Worlds of If (November 1962, January, March 1963), and published in hardcover in 1963. The novel is about a teenage girl named Podkayne “Poddy” Fries and her younger, asocial genius brother, Clark, who leave their home on Mars to take a trip on a spaceliner to visit Earth, accompanied by their uncle.

http://worldtracker.org/media/library/English%20Literature/H/Heinlein,%20Robert%20A/Robert%20A%20Heinlein%20-%20Podkayne%20of%20Mars.pdf

[Jack Hydrazine]

Quote from the book:

The solar flares trigger radiation, he told us, quite ordinary radiation, much like X-rays („and other sorts,“ I mentally added), the sort of radiation which is found in space at all times. But the intensity reaches levels from a thousand to ten thousand times as high as „normal“ space radiation-and, since we are already inside the orbit of Earth, this is bad medicine indeed; it would kill an unprotected man about as quickly as shooting him through the head.

Then he explained why we would not require a thousand to ten thousand times as much shielding in order to be safe. It’s the cascade principle. The outer hull stops over 90 percent of any radiation; then comes the „cofferdam“ (cargo holds and water tanks) which absorbs some more; then comes the inner hull which is actually the floor of the cylinder which is first-class passenger country.

This much shielding is plenty for all normal conditions; the radiation level in our staterooms is lower than it is at home, quite a lot lower than it is most places on Earth, especially in the mountains. (I’m looking forward to seeing real mountains. Scary!)

[Jack Hydrazine]

The next launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is 27MAY2014/0327EDT, 0027 PDT.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Falcon 9 launch manifest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_launches

[PA Engineer]

I believe that the spaceship on which much of the action of Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars used water as a radiation shield. It was written in the early 1960s.

I hadn't read it. I guess great minds think alike. ;-)

I had sketched out a lightweight honeycomb panel design using electroosmosis to recycle the water. Oh well.

[PA Engineer]

Thanks for the links. I figured years ago that water was the most economical multi-purpose material for the job. I am still interested in how they go about it.

[Jack Hydrazine]

How they go about lifting it into orbit?

[PA Engineer]

How they go about lifting it into orbit?

The water would be handled by other flights. The honeycombs for electroosmosis membranes are very light. I gamed it and figured the existing heavy weight lift was sufficient.

I was convinced that we could have kept going with the Saturn platform at the time. If we had the will. After Apollo, things went severely wrong culturally, socially and technologically.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Maybe one or two flights with the super heavy lift vehicle (using 9 Raptor engines) in water-only cargo containers using anti-slosh baffles.

[PA Engineer]

Maybe one or two flights with the super heavy lift vehicle (using 9 Raptor engines) in water-only cargo containers using anti-slosh baffles.

I considered both water and/or hydrogen and oxygen. I gamed a P/N junction in both directions providing adequate power for electrical generation during the fabrication.

Sloshing water could have been a heck of a gyroscope challenge for the time.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Fuel cell technology has come a long way since the Apollo days.