The Competition of the Methalox engines

[Robotbeat]

You forgot Kestrel and the Starship landing thrusters, whatever they're called.

[deltaV]

SpaceX has developed only 3 engines, the Draco/Super Draco, Merlin, and now Raptor.

Draco and Super Draco are two different engines. Super Draco has 177x the thrust of Draco.

[meekGee]

..  but back to Methalox engines.

BE-4 and Raptor are in the same class, and that's the only comparison that makes sense.  Everyone else is not in a "war" but rather in survival mode.

BE-4 was titled "operational", but in fact demonstrated less abilities than Raptor 2 did.

Obviously Raptor is manufactured in much higher quantities and lower price point.

While similar in thrust, Raptor is easily the more capable engine of the two, by any measure.

[ulm_atms]

Off-Topic but...

I just want to say that "war" is a way over used and a mostly, wrongly used word now a days.  What is being discussed seems to me to be competition.  War implies conflict....which this is NOT.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war

[edzieba]

Updated table with TQ-12:

-	Raptor	BE-4	TQ-12
Operate on test stand	Completed	Completed	Completed
Complete static fire	Completed	Completed	Completed
Ignite and lift off for flight	Completed	Completed	Completed
Complete first stage/booster burn successfully	Completed	Completed	Completed
Reignite for boostback	Partially Completed	No attempt	No attempt
Complete boostback burn successfully	Attempt failed	No attempt	No attempt
Reignite for landing	Partially Completed (upper stage only)	Not yet attempted	No attempt
Complete landing burn successfully	Partially Completed (upper stage only)	Not yet attempted	No attempt
Ignite for upper stage	Completed	No attempt	Completed
Complete upper stage insertion burn successfully	Attempt failed	No attempt	Completed
Ignite for in-orbit / deorbit burn	Not yet attempted	No attempt	?
Complete in-orbit / deorbit burn successfully	Not yet attempted	No attempt	?
Be re-used for flight	Not yet attempted	Not yet attempted	No attempt

[baldusi]

At the time BO started BE-4 development (2011) Raptor was still a notional Hydrolox staged-combustion engine, ...

Is it even possible to do hydrogen FFSC or was it FRSC ?

FFSC is possible on hydrolox, it’s just not as huge of a performance boost as the hydrogen requires like 80% of the pump power anyway.

Even though Methalox requires slightly higher pump power for the oxygen as the methane, you could have probably designed a higher chamber pressure FRSC engine with less of an engineering headache as ORSC (no hot oxygen-rich gas).

I’m not sure if FFSC is possible with kerolox as you’d probably get coking problems on the kerosene side.

Let me remind you that when using methalox, OR gives you like twice the power or FR. In hydrolox case it's different because you have something like 5 times the thermal power available on the FR side. And on kerolox you can't (in practice) do FR. So it is logical, in fact, to go OR for methalox. You actually need lower turbine temps for OR.
That's also the reason why it only makes real sense to do FF in methalox (or UDMH/N2H2). In hydrolox is possible, but the payoff is marginal compared to FR.
Regarding the thread topic, I think people underestimate the engineering bandwidth and strength of SpaceX propulsion team. Not Energomash nor KBKhA were able to do a full flow engine. And Rocketdyne spent a fortune on just a FF powerhead, but was never able to actually build a product around it.
SpaceX team not only can develop, buy they can build and test them with actual serial production. I can't stress how far ahead of everybody else they are. Even with all the money in the world, Blue still uses government testing stands. And Polyot was not able to serially produce the RD-191. To put into perspective, Merlin 1D family has had 3111 complete missions, with a single failure that didn't affected the mission. So yes, Raptor is heads and shoulders above the rest by much. But nobody can compare nor compete from nothing at all.
Whoever follows needs to do lots of cheap methalox engines first, to get the experience, and then we might see who attempts another full flow engine. One in the 1MN range would be ideal. But this is a discussion for the next decade.

[Darkseraph]

Off-Topic but...

I just want to say that "war" is a way over used and a mostly, wrongly used word now a days.  What is being discussed seems to me to be competition.  War implies conflict....which this is NOT.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war

Perhaps it should be renamed to a Special Propulsive Operation 

[laszlo]

...To put into perspective, Merlin 1D family has had 3111 complete missions, with a single failure that didn't affected the mission.

Tell that to Orbcomm.

[GreenShrike]

...To put into perspective, Merlin 1D family has had 3111 complete missions, with a single failure that didn't affected the mission.

Tell that to Orbcomm.

Flight 4 of the Falcon 9 v1.0, which carried a Dragon for  ISS resupply and Orbcomm-OG2 as a secondary payload, used Merlin 1C engines, not the Merlin 1Ds of the Falcon 9 v1.1+ vehicles. ;-)


As for the thread, I agree with Baldusi.

On the one hand, you have a compact, high-thrust full-flow methalox engine being churned out continuously by a factory line for extremely low single-digit millions of dollars, of which 30+ of them have successfully propelled their booster to staging.

On the other hand, you have none of that except a high-thrust methalox engine, of which two have successfully completed their flights.

I look forward to Blue demonstrating Merlin-like reliability as the New Glenn launcher grows into the heavy workhorse role it's meant for. The BE-4 is a solid step over the Merlin tech-wise (ORSC vs. gas generator) and size-wise, but it's also a step behind Raptor in terms of power cycle, thrust-density, and being designed-to-cost.

Reuse certainly helps mitigate the pain of high build costs, but with BE-4's cost being what it currently is, unfortunately losing a New Glenn booster is going to hit the pocketbook a lot harder than losing an F9 booster -- maybe even more than losing a Super Heavy. It's entirely understandable that Blue wants to start recovering them even from its first flight.

[laszlo]

Flight 4 of the Falcon 9 v1.0, which carried a Dragon for  ISS resupply and Orbcomm-OG2 as a secondary payload, used Merlin 1C engines, not the Merlin 1Ds of the Falcon 9 v1.1+ vehicles. ;-)

Oops.

[spacenut]

The title should have been "Competition" instead of war.  Competition is what companies do.  War is what politicians do when they control a country. 

[Tywin]

The title should have been "Competition" instead of war.  Competition is what companies do.  War is what politicians do when they control a country.

Agree, remember people that english is not my first language, and in the moment of the thread, I don't know that war, have this meaning so negative vs competition...

[trimeta]

The title should have been "Competition" instead of war.  Competition is what companies do.  War is what politicians do when they control a country.

Agree, remember people that english is not my first language, and in the moment of the thread, I don't know that war, have this meaning so negative vs competition...

80% of your posts and comments are attempts to stir up shit, don't hide behind the language barrier. (The other 20% are interesting links, I'll grant.)

[Tywin]

The title should have been "Competition" instead of war.  Competition is what companies do.  War is what politicians do when they control a country.

Agree, remember people that english is not my first language, and in the moment of the thread, I don't know that war, have this meaning so negative vs competition...

80% of your posts and comments are attempts to stir up shit, don't hide behind the language barrier. (The other 20% are interesting links, I'll grant.)

Guilty of the charge, for post shit, and all that, only for love the projects of Blue Origin, and the New Glenn, a terrible sin, for some in this forum...

[Tywin]

The title should have been "Competition" instead of war.  Competition is what companies do.  War is what politicians do when they control a country.

Agree, remember people that english is not my first language, and in the moment of the thread, I don't know that war, have this meaning so negative vs competition...

80% of your posts and comments are attempts to stir up shit, don't hide behind the language barrier. (The other 20% are interesting links, I'll grant.)

PD: In Spanish war meaning war, like in english, BUT is use a lot in competition comparasion, meaning too...

[Tywin]

Fixed thread title.

[Tywin]

I left this here, this infographic, very recent, show the NewSpace of China, and the engines of methalox of their future launchers...

[meekGee]

The title should have been "Competition" instead of war.  Competition is what companies do.  War is what politicians do when they control a country.

Agree, remember people that english is not my first language, and in the moment of the thread, I don't know that war, have this meaning so negative vs competition...

80% of your posts and comments are attempts to stir up shit, don't hide behind the language barrier. (The other 20% are interesting links, I'll grant.)

Guilty of the charge, for post shit, and all that, only for love the projects of Blue Origin, and the New Glenn, a terrible sin, for some in this forum...

You're doing it again.

[edzieba]

Updated table with TQ-12:

-	Raptor	BE-4	TQ-12
Operate on test stand	Completed	Completed	Completed
Complete static fire	Completed	Completed	Completed
Ignite and lift off for flight	Completed	Completed	Completed
Complete first stage/booster burn successfully	Completed	Completed	Completed
Reignite for boostback	Partially Completed	No attempt	No attempt
Complete boostback burn successfully	Attempt failed	No attempt	No attempt
Reignite for landing	Partially Completed (upper stage only)	Not yet attempted	No attempt
Complete landing burn successfully	Partially Completed (upper stage only)	Not yet attempted	No attempt
Ignite for upper stage	Completed	No attempt	Completed
Complete upper stage insertion burn successfully	Attempt failed	No attempt	Completed
Ignite for in-orbit / deorbit burn	Not yet attempted	No attempt	?
Complete in-orbit / deorbit burn successfully	Not yet attempted	No attempt	?
Be re-used for flight	Not yet attempted	Not yet attempted	No attempt

Updated:

-	Raptor	BE-4	TQ-12
Operate on test stand	Completed	Completed	Completed
Complete static fire	Completed	Completed	Completed
Ignite and lift off for flight	Completed	Completed	Completed
Complete first stage/booster burn successfully	Completed	Completed	Completed
Reignite for boostback	Completed	No attempt	No attempt
Complete boostback burn successfully	Completed	No attempt	No attempt
Reignite for landing	Attempt failed (booster)/Completed (ship)	Not yet attempted	No attempt
Complete landing burn successfully	Not yet attempted (booster)/Completed (ship)	Not yet attempted	No attempt
Ignite for upper stage	Completed	No attempt	Completed
Complete upper stage insertion burn successfully	Completed	No attempt	Completed
Ignite for in-orbit / deorbit burn	Attempt aborted	No attempt	?
Complete in-orbit / deorbit burn successfully	Attempt aborted	No attempt	?
Be re-used for flight	Not yet attempted	Not yet attempted	No attempt

[Tywin]

Can we have a comparison of the Archimedes vs Miranda* vs Aeon-R?

https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1787590838178254925


I know *Miranda is Kerolox...