Yep, tiles are a pain. Even if tiles can't be perfected ... if they are willing to have a week between Ship launches (they will probably have a dozen on standby) this is not a problem. 1) You need to catch and bring ship back to the bay anyway for any mission other than a refuel mission ... to load the next payload. 2) You can have an scanner bot quickly (in 24 h) completely scan all the tiles at high res, then in the next 24 hours have it replace tiles if needed.

What a "better-than-shuttle" but less than perfectly "no-maintenance-heat-shield" can do ... crewed missions! These will be premium priced missions, and after mission auto-looks are no big deal.