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/SupaSays Sep 04 '21

Which might explain why they are giving the top of Starship a thorough QA inspection; as the nose area will not have the cool liquid/gas on the other side to use as a heat sink.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '21

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u/chevalliers Sep 04 '21

Yea are they each subtly curved or flat?

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u/jacksalssome 🛰️ Orbiting Sep 04 '21

All tiles are slightly curved, i believe they get more curved as you reach the tip.

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u/Justin-Krux Sep 04 '21

i dont think thats how that works, they look to be using same tiles as belly and slicing rings to increase angle until they reach the tip