SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced that one of the company's most powerful engines will be produced at a rate of about one per every 12 hours by the end of the year in his quest to get a person on Mars.
The massive production ramp-up was foreshadowed by a series of tweets posted early Monday morning, which began with a bold photo: an orange-tinted orb, with bold font reading, 'OCCUPY MARS.'
But that orb was in fact a picture of an orange-tinted 'blood-moon', not of Mars.
As Twitter followers rushed to point out the blunder, Musk eventually segued into more substantive - if speculative - news, shedding light on a huge leap in the company's production output.
In a recent tweet, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made bold predictions about the production of the company's Raptor engines which could one day take the first human to the moon.
'Raptor liberated its oxygen turbine stator (appears to be mechanical, not metal combustion failure), so we need to update the design & replace some parts,' https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1143019549492744203 Musk in the thread.
'Production is ramping exponentially, though. SN6 almost done. Aiming for an engine every 12 hours by end-of-year.'
The CEO even went as far as to project a specific - and very large - number of engines that could be made as a result of the company's push.
'Full year production is usually 70 [percent] of peak daily rate, so 500 [per] year. Still, non-trivial at 100,000 tons of thrust [per] year,' https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1143022645585358848.
The Raptor engines are used in one of the SpaceX's most sophisticated spacecrafts, The Starship, which is currently undergoing construction and aims to take the first-ever human to Mars. The Starship will require a whopping 31 Raptor engines to propel the craft.
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