Billionaire Elon Musk, CEO of space company SpaceX, revealed that he is not happy with the slow progress currently being made by SpaceX in the development of the Raptor engines that will be needed to power the prototype spacecraft being developed by the company. to take humanity to the moon again.
The new information was revealed to the press through an email sent by the company’s CEO. According to him, SpaceX is facing serious new problems with the development of the Starship, as the spacecraft that, in partnership with NASA, will be able to land on the moon in the future, was called.
In the email, Elon Musk said his company has faced a difficult situation over the past few days: “The current crisis in Raptor production is much worse than it looked a few weeks ago. We run a real risk of bankruptcy if we fail to achieve a Starship flight rate at least once every two weeks for the next year.”
The so-called Starship is an extremely ambitious investment by SpaceX and will consist of a kind of giant rocket designed to transport humans to both the moon and Mars. The company has tested many prototypes recently, even carrying out several test flights, some of which were successful, although one caused an explosion shortly thereafter.
But, according to Elon Musk, if the company is not able to make major advances in the spacecraft’s flight system, 39 Raptor engines will be needed in each rocket used, which will demand a very difficult and expensive level of production.
The recent e-mail Elon Musk forwarded to his company’s employees also reveals how the departure of former SpaceX propulsion industry vice president Will Heltsley has affected the company. Will Heltsley left the company in early November this year, as revealed by the company.
Until the moment he left the company, he was responsible for managing the development of the Raptor range of engines. However, according to the e-mail sent by Elon Musk, SpaceX executives started to investigate more details about the Raptor engine creation program and recently discovered that the crisis facing this sector of the company has been more severe than expected. .
So far, the CEO of Space-X has not revealed what will be the measures taken by the company in an attempt to get around this situation in which it finds itself.
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