Meghana KandraInitially, Elon Musk shares “Fellowship of raptors” where a group of Raptor engines can be seen in the pic. Then talks about creating a fleet that can make a sustainable city on Mars.
Image credits- Tesmanian
Breaking the ground soon
Elon Musk stated in a tweet that the SpaceX Texas test site will be breaking the ground soon on a second raptor factory. While the California factory focuses on Raptor vacuum and other new designs, the Texas factory will manufacture the Raptor engines.
We are breaking ground soon on a second Raptor factory at SpaceX Texas test site. This will focus on volume production of Raptor 2, while California factory will make Raptor Vacuum & new, experimental designs.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2021
As SpaceX is working around the clock to build Starship and the related technology, they also have to innovate rapidly. SpaceX started preparing the Starship prototype for its first orbital test flight. The test flight is to take place from South Texas and land on the off -coast of Hawaii. For ground testing of the stainless steel vehicle, the engineers initiated a booster test campaign in the past week.
Once the orbital test flight is successful, the Super Heavy booster rocket will be the most powerful rocket with the capacity to lift 100 tons of cargo. Furthermore, the rocket could have 32-33 raptor engines powered with Methalox. Recently Elon Musk mentioned that the raptor engine’s performance will be boosted by 15%.
The engines are 3 meters tall and 1.3 meters in diameter. The ones shared by Elon Musk are Vaccum Raptors which have larger bell Nozzles. Boosters manufacturing means the booster performance is the same for all or most of the boosters.
Colonizing Mars
As various Raptor engines could be seen, a user asks about how many Raptor engines are to be manufactured by SpaceX per year. To which Elon Musk replied, to building a self-sustaining city on mars SpaceX needs to build 800-1000 Raptors per year. And adds that it will take 20-30 years to build the city on Mars.
Roughly 800 to 1000 per year. That’s about what’s needed over ten years to create the fleet to build a self-sustaining city on Mars. City itself probably takes roughly 20 years, so hopefully it is built by ~2050.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2021
As the company will set up new manufacturing units, more Raptor engines are yet to come. In June, the Raptor vacuum was sent for orbital launch first time ever. Though it was a successful one, Musk mentions that the performance could be better.
As the Starships orbital test flight date is coming close, SpaceX is ramping up its operations. Though the orbital test flight of the booster was successful, it still needs various improvements prior to the launch. By 2050, SpaceX will have built a city on Mars that can fully or partially sustain itself without the need of sending supplies or other parts regularly.