{"id":18504,"date":"2018-05-24T21:38:03","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T13:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-propulsion-guru-tom-mueller-looks-ahead-to-raptor-rocket-engines-for-mars\/"},"modified":"2018-05-24T21:38:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T13:38:03","slug":"spacex-propulsion-guru-tom-mueller-looks-ahead-to-raptor-rocket-engines-for-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-propulsion-guru-tom-mueller-looks-ahead-to-raptor-rocket-engines-for-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX propulsion guru Tom Mueller looks ahead to Raptor rocket engines for Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tom
Tom Mueller, SpaceX\u2019s propulsion chief technology officer, meets his fans at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LOS ANGELES \u2014 SpaceX\u2019s success owes a lot to the tenacity of the company\u2019s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, but some of the credit has to go to the guy who designed the engines that make the rockets go.<\/p>\n

That would be Tom Mueller, who was one of SpaceX\u2019s first employees back in 2002 and now serves as its propulsion chief technology officer.<\/p>\n

Today Mueller recounted the creation of SpaceX\u2019s Merlin engines, and dropped some hints about the more powerful Raptor engines to come, while picking up a Space Pioneer Award here at the National Space Society\u2019s International Space Development Conference.<\/p>\n

Before signing on with SpaceX, Mueller spent 15 years at TRW, where he was in charge of propulsion and combustion products and liquid rocket engine development.<\/p>\n

Musk gave Mueller and his team the task of building the rocket engines that would power SpaceX\u2019s Falcon rockets, which derived that name from the Millennium Falcon of \u201cStar Wars\u201d fame.<\/p>\n

An engineer at Barber-Nichols, a firm that partnered with SpaceX in the early days, happened to be a falconer \u2014 and she suggested that SpaceX\u2019s engines could be named after kinds of falcons.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how SpaceX\u2019s smallest engine came to be known as the Kestrel, one of the smallest breeds of the bird. The larger engine was named after a larger falcon: the Merlin.<\/p>\n

The Merlin rocket engine has gone through several iterations under the guidance of Mueller and his teammates. The latest iteration, the Merlin 1D, revolutionized spaceflight when it entered service in 2013.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vVQyZn-VtXU<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a world-class engine,\u201d Mueller said. \u201cThis is very easy to make, very low-cost and extremely reliable. Very proud of it. And another thing that this engine had designed into it was fast and deep throttling. Fast and deep throttling allowed us to land the rocket, so this basically enabled recovery of the vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past couple of years, the sight of SpaceX\u2019s reusable rockets landing themselves on oceangoing platforms or Florida landing zones has become routine. Reusability already has trimmed the $60 million price tag for a Falcon 9 launch by $10 million, Musk said this month, and there\u2019s more savings to come.<\/p>\n

The Merlin 1D\u2019s performance has been tweaked for SpaceX\u2019s upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rockets, raising the engine\u2019s liftoff thrust to 190,000 pounds. SpaceX\u2019s propulsion team is also aiming for the engines to be reused up to 10 times before retirement.<\/p>\n

Mueller compared the challenge to automobile maintenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re getting \u2018100,000-mile\u2019 problems, where you see blade-cracking \u2026 wearing out seals, thrust chambers cracked,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re more into the 100,000-mile problems, not the infant mortality problems or the design problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mueller is confident that the problems will be solved, but he\u2019s already shifting his attention to the next big thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been working on Mars for the last four years, so I\u2019m not going to take any credit for the Block 5 engine and all the upgrades that have happened,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll take credit for developing the team that developed the Merlin 1D engine.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Mueller says he\u2019s been working on Mars, he means that he\u2019s been working on the Raptor rocket engine for SpaceX\u2019s Mars transport spacecraft, known as the Big Frickin\u2019 Rocket or BFR.<\/p>\n