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Slow motion view of Flight 5 Starship’s six Raptor engines during static fire (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Via SpaceX: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1817312715758862485

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I suspect they have so much thrust that the sea level pressure simply is irrelevant.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

The bell is scaled to match thrust though. If you get too much expansion the flow peels away from the inside of the bell and you get turbulence, pressure variations and then usually a big kerboom, especially on startup as you're trying to ramp up to steady state conditions. I'm guessing the bell is more high-altitude optimised than true vacuum optimised.