SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says

A senior NASA official said this week that the company has taken steps to address two of the space agency's biggest concerns.

The human landing system was chosen by NASA. This was the riskiest choice of NASA's options because of the size of the vehicle. NASA had confidence that the company would deliver because it had worked with them before and they had self- invested billions of dollars into the project.

The new Raptor rocket engine and the transfer and storage of liquid oxygen and methane propellant are two of NASA's biggest technological development concerns. Kirasich said during a subcommittee meeting of NASA's Advisory Council on Monday that the company has made progress.

On Raptor

The success of the company depends on the rocket engine. The Super Heavy booster that serves as the vehicle's first stage is powered by 33 of these Raptor 2 engines. For a successful lunar mission, the engines will need to re-light on the surface of the Moon. The astronauts will probably die if the engines don't work.

"SpaceX is moving very fast on development," Kirasich said. They manufactured a product called Raptor 1.0. They upgraded to Raptor 2.0 because it increases performance and thrust and reduces the amount of parts. These things are built very quickly. They hit their goal of seven engines a week. They are now making seven engines a week.

The Raptor 2 rocket engine is capable of producing over 500,000 pounds of thrust. The amount of thrust produced by the engine that will power the Space Launch System rocket is almost the same as this. The rocketdyne engine was developed in the 70s for the space shuttle program and the company has decades of experience manufacturing them.

NASA gave Aerojet Rocketdyne a contract worth more than a billion dollars to restart the production line for the RS-25 engine. Money was used to reestablish manufacturing facilities, not build the engines. NASA is paying a lot of money for those. The goal was for Aerojet Rocketdyne to make four of these engines annually.

As it builds and tests Raptors, Kirasich said that the company is making higher-quality engines.