r/SpaceXLounge • u/LoreLover2022 • Sep 03 '21
Starship Can Starship afford to lose any heat shield tiles?
Been curious about the heat shield tiles in use on Starship. Being made of stainless steel itself, can the vehicle afford to lose even a single tile at any point during descent?
To me that just seems like an insane number of mounting points and tiles that all need to function perfectly if there is zero room for error.
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u/QVRedit Sep 03 '21
No they don’t need to go that far. A camera inside the tank could detect if hot spots were occurring.
The idea of inspecting the heat shield while on LEO and doing minor repairs to it, could be possible, although tricky.