"Roskomos" considers incorrect to compare the engines Raptor Ilona Mask and RD-180

Raptor engine tests

On February 11, Ilon Musk wrote on his Twitter that his company had achieved a pressure of 268.9 bar in the combustion chamber of the Raptor engine. According to the entrepreneur, SpaceX broke the previous record owned by the Russian RD-180 engine. The company will use its engine to send people and payloads to the Moon and Mars (in the distant future).

With the opinion of Mask about the superiority of Raptor engines, thedesigners of NPO Energomash did not agree . According to experts, the engines have different fuel circuits, respectively, to compare their work is incorrect.

As for Raptor, it works on methane and oxygen, so a high level of pressure in the combustion chamber for engines of this type is not “something outstanding,” said the chief designer of the Energomash NKPO Pyotr Levochkin. “And the pressure parameter in the chamber itself is not an output characteristic of the engine, such as thrust and specific impulse,” he added.

Russian RD-180 engines run on oxygen and kerosene, another scheme is used here, the pressure in the combustion chamber can reach 280 atmospheres. Levochkin argues that comparing the Energomash and SpaceX engines is the same as “comparing a diesel and a gasoline internal combustion engine”.

At the end of their message, the designers of NPO Energomash declared that they welcome the “first successes” of colleagues from SpaceX in the field of rocket engine building. This "testifies to a fairly high level of development and production processes in the company SpaceX".