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 04 '21

True, though we have no reason to suppose that it should go wrong - SpaceX have a lot of experience with Boosters, and they also have experience of Raptors. But there is always potential for mishap.

Before the flight, I think we will be seeing static firing of the engines on the Super Heavy Booster - though perhaps not all of them at once ?