SpaceX Raptor

Yeah.

But we don't hear about that, and all I hear is concern about Raptor.

Mm-hmm.

It's probably the Valve's.

Culturally, there's a fascinating paradox in watching an aerospace pioneer transform into an AI infrastructure utility.

For nearly two decades, SpaceX's identity was defined by Starship, Raptor engines, and multi-planetary colonization.

Today, its most profitable commercial engine runs on GPU racks and cooling towers in Tennessee.

It's a stark reflection of where capital and societal priority are concentrating.

In principle, Starship could get around the solar system quicker since it won't need to meander around looking for multiple gravity assists to get up to speed.

Instead, it can just fire its powerful Raptor rocket.

And although in this video we're primarily interested in astronomy applications, it has to be said that Starship will open up some incredibly exciting opportunities for planetary science and solar system exploration as well.

For context, the Saturn orbiter mission, Cassini, was the heaviest deep space probe ever launched at 5.6 tons.

There are two big differences to highlight between these launchers.

One is the engines, and the second is the materials.

So first, rather than use the Merlin engines of the Falcon 9, which used RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen, often dubbed Keralox, Starship will use the new Raptor engine, which uses methane plus liquid oxygen, or Methalox.

You might expect hydrogen to be the fuel here, but SpaceX have long avoided hydrogen despite its greater specific impulse.

But you can't make it totally chronological, especially with a Musk.

If, uh, one morning he's obsessing about buying Twitter, but then he has to worry about a valve leak on a Raptor engine happening in Texas, and then he's on a meeting about full self-driving, you don't want the book to just be one damn thing after another.

You decide, "All right, how am I gonna cluster these so that they have a certain coherence to them?" In the Musk book, you'll notice something different from my other books.

The chapters are very short-

And I looked for what should be the culmination of the book, and I didn't really want it to be Twitter and it puttering along and also messing up moderation, because I think that's not a big deal for him.

The big deal was space travel, and I knew that he was going to do the launch of Starship in Boca Chica.

And I'd been there for the surges over the course of 2022, where they stacked it and unstacked it and tested its 33 Raptor engines and fixed all the valves.

And I said, "I think that will be the culminating scene in the book."

Ship 40's journey took it across air, space, and sea.

Now that it is vertical alongside three other Starships in a Mega Bay at Starbase, it will provide first-of-its-kind data on a flown Starship, heat shield, and Raptor engines.

I mean, that's really cool.

So you could basically be like-

Positioned upright inside the megabay hangar, the vehicle is now undergoing a technical review.

Engineers will examine its heat shield, Raptor engines, and avionics systems, with findings feeding into the development of reusable spacecraft.

According to the firm, Ship 40 stands to yield telemetry on a flown Starship heat shield, Raptor engines, avionics, and related systems that no previous flight has produced.

SpaceX has already demonstrated booster retrieval using the launch tower's mechanical arms with multiple super-heavy boosters, though that approach has not yet been applied to a Starship upper stage.

Data from Ship 40 could point engineers toward refinements in heat shielding and related systems before subsequent launches or retrieval operations take place.