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by arijun 42 days ago
> moved a lot of stuff "inside" the engine

The level that they managed to fit everything inside of a simple-looking package was so high that the CEO of ULA (the Boeing/Lockheed Martin rocket company) thought they were lying when they first showed pictures [1].

[1] https://www.benzinga.com/news/24/08/40279896/spacex-presiden...
3 comments
Tuna-Fish 42 days ago
The reason he was so skeptical is that for other engine manufacturers, there are generally different teams working on different parts of the engine, and because Convay's law the final artifact generally ends up looking like the organizational boundaries of the company that made it, with cleanly separated parts for every sub-organization that you can see in the final assembly. One of the things that SpaceX is good at is optimization across these kinds of boundaries, integrating hardware in ways that would be difficult for a more traditional organization.
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mapt 42 days ago
The way it was explained to me early on was that the newest Raptor engines had simply eliminated many of the different types of test sensors, specifically because sufficient testing had been performed that they weren't getting useful data out of them any more.

I'm not some kind of insider, though.

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kotaKat 42 days ago
It honestly makes sense now that I'm looking at a progression down the line - https://i.redd.it/f7prq0x08qgd1.jpeg

Just continual tweaks and refinement to keep slimming down the packaging.

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moralestapia 42 days ago
Hey, where did you get that image from?

First time I see it!

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dotancohen 41 days ago
That photo is thrown around a lot in the Spacex fan community. At least it was. I think the photo is at least two years old.

I suspect that many of those pipes are for testing instrumentation of the early models. And those that remain necessary, might be built into channels in the engine body now, like how a carburettor is built. That's much simpler and cheaper to manufacture and maintain, not to mention more reliable.

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avmich 42 days ago
I still don't see TVC there. I think Shotwell was exaggerating.
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NitpickLawyer 42 days ago
Here it is, already mounted on Starship - https://i.redd.it/q5dea3tsf60h1.jpeg
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dotancohen 41 days ago
The TVC is clearly visible on one of the center engines in that photo, thank you. It's just about the only thing on there other than the thrust chamber, turbopumps, and bell!
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avmich 42 days ago
Tory Bruno was talking about different configuration.
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