SpaceX shows off new iteration of its Starship’s Raptor rocket engine

SpaceX showed off its new version of Starship‘s methane powered rocket engines over the weekend. The new Raptor 3 engine is dramatically cleaner and more powerful then what SpaceX was using on its first Starship missions.

There’s usually not a lot of news about rocket engines these days. They are rather the unsung heroes of the spaceflight industry, as without them we would be quite literally stuck on the ground.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket uses 39 total Raptor engines, 33 sea level engines on the Superheavy booster and six on the Starship upper stage (3 sea level and 3 vacuum optimized ones). While we regularly talk about how the Starship rocket is the next major innovative step in commercial launch services, the Raptor engine itself is a ground breaking piece of hardware.

The full-flow staged combustion engine is a beast to engineer. Using two pre-burners to power separate fuel and oxidizer turbo pumps, all plumbed back into the main combustion chamber. The upsides are the reliability and reusability bonus, SpaceX hopes to get at least 1000 flights out of each of these engines when Starship becomes operational.

In a photo released last Saturday, SpaceX shared its third iteration of the engines. You can see from the first version just how complex the plumbing is on this class of engines.

Now all that plumbing hasn’t just disappeared, SpaceX has constantly reengineered the engine to be simpler and simpler. It’s amazing to see that the Raptor 3 is both smaller, cleaner, and more powerful.

SpaceX used the original Raptors on Starship’s early low altitude flights. The Raptor 2s came out for the fully integrated launches that have taken place this year. Right now it’s unknown how many Raptor 3s SpaceX has produced and sent to Starbase for use. It’s unlikely there will be many, if any at all, on the next Starship launch which could take place in a matter of weeks.