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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday pegged the video of a Raptor engine test firing as a “fire vs water” competition.
What Happened: “Fire vs Water,” Musk wrote in response to a user who shared a video of a raptor engine test firing into a water-cooled steel plate.
The video, originally shared by SpaceX in May 2023, shows the engine’s red-hot flame firing at a steel plate, setting a visual spectacle. Musk himself had then shared the video with the caption, “One hell of a plasma beam!”
Unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Heavy Rockets which are powered by Merlin engines, its Starship is powered by Raptor engines. Raptor engines are reusable methane-oxygen staged-combustion engines that have twice the thrust as a Falcon 9 Merlin engine.
Why It Matters: SpaceX’s Starship, composed of the Super Heavy rocket and the spacecraft, aims to create a fully reusable transportation system for crew and cargo missions to Earth’s orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. While the spacecraft will be powered by six raptor engines, Super Heavy will be powered by 33 raptor engines.
The company conducted the first test launch of Starship in April. The rocket exploded in less than four minutes after take-off, damaging the launch pad at Starbase and raining down dust on the residents of Port Isabel, Texas.
The second flight test of Starship could launch as soon as mid-November if regulatory approval is received, SpaceX said earlier this week.
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