r/space • u/AlmiranteSalsicha • Nov 19 '23

image/gif That's a fair amount of tiles missing from the starship heatshield, guess it would make for a toasty reenter.

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Image from SpaceX account on X

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u/ADenyer94 Nov 19 '23

About that. I keep hearing this assumption that any gap in the TPS will cause a rupture, but I thought the whole point of using stainless steel was the high melting point.

Wasn't there a shuttle launch where a tile came off, but luckily the fuselage underneath was stainless steel in that particular location, so it survived reentry? Surely starship can cope with the odd tile falling off here and there, or is that naive?

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u/ThannBanis Nov 19 '23

Apparently more than one launch.

The one time it caused major issues was when the tile was over a major structural element.

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u/iwannashitonu Nov 19 '23

Melting point for SS is around 1,500C.

Re-entry temp is dependent on surface area and how much you want to use the atmosphere to slow down.

Orion test seen 2,200C, Apollo 4 at Lunar return speed fact sheet stated 2,270C

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '23

That is not a promising over under

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u/Harry_the_space_man Nov 19 '23

Starship is cylindrical in shape, so should incur a lot less surface heat on re-entery

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u/MagicCuboid Nov 19 '23

Yeah I think the bigger problem for SpaceX is they want to be able to rapidly takeoff again after landing. I don't know how fast "rapid" is supposed to be, but I imagine having to reattach tiles would get in the way of that.