33 Raptor engines
The Starship booster is powered by 33 upgraded Raptor 2 engines, the most engines ever packed into a single rocket. The previous record belongs to the Soviet Union’s N1 rocket, which managed to fire 30 engines simultaneously during a failed launch in 1969—a failure that effectively killed the catastrophically flawed project.
SpaceX, by virtue of its design decision, is treading into some seriously uncharted waters, which is nothing new for this company. An open question going into Thursday’s demo was whether the combined blast might damage the launch pad; we’re still awaiting word on this, but the pad looked reasonably okay after the test.
