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Russia’s major rocket engine manufacturer responds to Elon Musk

Credit: Aleksey Filippov | RIAN

Chief engineer of Russia’s leading rocket engine manufacturer NPO Energomash, Pyotr Lyovochkin, has responded to US entrepreneur and engineer Elon Musk regarding Russian RD-180 liquid-fuel rocket engines. The engineer’s response has been posted on Energomash’s website.

According to Musk, the Raptor engine developed by his company SpaceX shattered the previously-held record of the Russian-designed engine by reaching an all-time high level of chamber pressure of 268.9 bar (274.2 kilograms per square centimeter). The Russian liquid-fuel engine shows the chamber pressure of 261.7 kilograms per sq centimeter. However, Lyovochkin noted that Musk, who is not a technical specialist, ignores the fact that the RD-180 engine uses a different fuel scheme: it is fueled by a kerosene/liquid oxygen (LOX) mixture, which implies different engine operating conditions.

“The parameter of ‘chamber pressure’ is not the engine’s output characteristic such as ‘thrust’ and ‘specific impulse’, Energomash’s chief engineer emphasized.

SpaseX’s Raptor is a methane staged-combustion engine, and the reported pressure level ‘is not something extraordinary’. Lyovochkin also congratulated SpaceX on their first achievements in rocket engine technology, and noted a high level of developments and production process in the US company.

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