SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and CEO Elon Musk hit back at rival rocket manufacturing company United Launch Alliance‘s CEO Tory Bruno on Thursday for his comments on the company’s Raptor 3 engine.
What Happened: Musk and SpaceX unveiled pictures of the company’s latest iteration of its Raptor engine earlier this month. The new version of the Starship engine does not require any heat shield as everything is regeneratively cooled. It is lighter and has more thrust and higher efficiency than Raptor 2, Musk said.
ULA CEO Tory Bruno responded to the pictures on X saying that SpaceX has done “an excellent job” making the engine’s assembly simpler and more producible. However, the photos shared, he alleged, are of “a partially assembled” engine.
“They have done an excellent job making the assembly simpler and more producible. So, there is no need to exaggerate this by showing a partially assembled engine without controllers, fluid management, or TVC systems, then comparing it to fully assembled engines that do,” Bruno wrote.
SpaceX President Shotwell hit back at Bruno on Thursday with an image of the engine’s first firing test. The image shows that the engine is indeed complete and needs no additions for functioning.
“Works pretty good for a "partially assembled" engine :),” Shotwell wrote.
Musk, too, responded to Bruno’s allegations with a short “lol.” The CEO in a later post said that all the small plumbing and wiring involved in the engine had to be either deleted or incorporated into the primary structure of the engine as it would have no heat shield.
“Also, all parts have to be actively cooled in some way, so we added regenerative cooling where there was no existing fluid or gas flow,” Musk added.
Why It Matters: SpaceX is currently dominating the space industry.
In the first quarter of 2024, SpaceX had 31 launches, trumping China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) which had 9 launches, and Russia’s Roscosmos which had 5.
As per a report from analytics firm Bryce Tech, SpaceX launched 525 spacecraft in the quarter while CASC launched 27.
ULA, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, launched only seven spacecraft in the quarter.
For the whole year, SpaceX is now looking to complete 144 launches. “SpaceX might exceed 90% of all Earth payload to orbit later this year,” Musk said in May.
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Photo courtesy: SpaceX
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