SpaceX has posted some incredible images showing the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor engines as they powered the Starship rocket skyward at the start of the vehicle’s sixth test flight on Tuesday.
“33 Raptor engines powering the Super Heavy booster off the pad from Starbase,” SpaceX wrote in the message on X.
SpaceX boss Elon Musk also shared the pictures on his own X account on Wednesday, adding, “Each rocket engine produces twice as much thrust as all 4 engines on a Boeing 747 and there are 33 of them.”
Each rocket engine produces twice as much thrust as all 4 engines on a Boeing 747 and there are 33 of them https://t.co/3D8pEVIvoL
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 21, 2024
The 33 Raptor engines are attached to the Starship’s first-stage Super Heavy booster and produce 17 million pounds of thrust at launch, making it the most powerful rocket ever to fly.
The generated power is almost twice that of the 8.8 million pounds of thrust created by NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which flew for the first time in 2022. It’s also more than double that of the Saturn V, which generated 7.6 million pounds of thrust during the launches that sent the Apollo astronauts on their way to the moon more than 50 years ago.
But SpaceX’s work doesn’t stop there, as there are plans to increase the power of the Raptor engines to an extent that will see the Super Heavy booster create an astonishing 23 million pounds of thrust during liftoff.
The extra power will significantly enhance the Starship’s ability to carry heavier payloads on its future missions to the moon and possibly even Mars. It would also result in a marked improvement in the rocket’s overall launch efficiency as the increased thrust will reduce gravity losses during the rocket’s ascent, as more of the rocket’s power would be used for acceleration rather than fighting gravity.
Tantalizingly, the extra power could also pave the way for Starship variants even larger than the current 120-meter-tall vehicle that’s currently undergoing testing.
In a nutshell, the improvements to the Starship’s Raptor engines have the potential to help SpaceX reach its goals of reducing launch costs, increasing payload capacity, and enhancing the overall performance of its launch system.