From April this year, SpaceX has released the Mars plan for four months. Because of NASA's funding and technical support, the entire project has come out better than the outside world expected. Judging from the current progress, the rocket prepared for the Mars plan is about to enter the ignition test phase.
At the recent Small Satellite Conference. Conference, SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell revealed that Mars exploration rocket Raptor engine has been delivered to the company's test site in Texas, and Raptor is SpaceX's newly developed engine.
"We just shipped the first Raptor engine to Texas last night. We are going to test the ignition soon."
New Raptor Engine Developed by SpaceX
It is understood that the thrust of the Raptor engine can be more than tripled compared to the Merlin engine of the Falcon 9 rocket, which solves the problem of the weight of the Chilong spacecraft (approximately 8 tons to 10 tons). Correspondingly, the super rocket BFR equipped with a Raptor engine will also exceed the "Falcon" heavy rocket. At present, the "Falcon" heavy rocket uses a three-stage thruster of the "Falcon 9" rocket, which includes a total of 27 Merlin engine.
However, there is still a big challenge for SpaceX to successfully log on to Mars. Mars atmospheric pressure is only one percent of the earth. It has very little resistance to spacecraft. It is more difficult for heavy-lift ships to land on the surface of Mars than normal missions. Bobby Braun, NASA’s former chief technologist, said: “SpaceX has tested a large number of landing technologies on Mars on Earth and is increasing the probability of success.â€
According to the Red Dragon plan previously announced by Elon Musk, the launch mission will be scheduled for 2018, and this is almost the only time available, according to foreign media, if SpaceX cannot start in 2018 To launch, it is necessary to wait until the planets are arranged in 2020 for possible launch missions.
Musk is expected to announce the specific details of the Mars plan at the International Aerospace Congress in Mexico this September.
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