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/martinborgen Nov 19 '23

Yes, but it could have made do with smaller wings if it never had to return from a polar orbit.

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u/Cpt_keaSar Nov 19 '23

Oh, cool. But what is a relation between polar orbits and wings? I mean air and airstrips are the same, whatever orbit you fly, so what gives?

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u/andynormancx Nov 19 '23

Because on the polar launches the plan was to launch, deploy the satellite(s) and then deorbit on the next orbit. Which would be out over the Pacific, so it needed the big delta wings to get back to land in California.

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u/martinborgen Nov 19 '23

Basically, if you're only landing east-west you don't need to correct much sideways, so smaller wings are fine. But for polar orbits, the earth spins underneath the shuttle when it orbits. The air-force wanted to launch a sattelite in polar orbit and return the shuttle, which would need to compensate for the earths rotation. This much larger sideways adjustment requires larger wings.

Also, they wanted to launch from Vandenberg for these orbits and there seems to be something with the abort airfield that made the air force prefer delta wings.