assume this is heat-shield material from the base area of the engines... seems odd that if it originated from the base of the engines that the material would go down against the airflow past the nozzle to get in the rocket plume... but it only happens after en...
The render offers a beautiful impression of the Starship surrounded by plasma. It also calls to mind the hexagonal-tile heat shield that will ensure the reusable spacecraft can survive repeated reentries. According to Musk's statement, these steel tiles will reinforce the sections of the spacecra...
Musk said the windward side of the future orbital-class version would be coated with a ceramic heat-shield material. During descent, it’s meant to face its windward side into the atmosphere to reduce velocity, and will fly something of a zigzag course to touch down on its six landing legs...
SpaceX got rid of some heat shield material. What happens from here is a guessing game SpaceX wants to eventually recover the Starship spacecraft. That means it can’t be completely covered in octagon-shaped tiles that are meant to protect the vehicle from the heat, pressure and friction ...
This time flight controllers will try to reignite an engine in space and run several heatshield experiments. The ship also will fly at a steeper angle in the final phase, "purposefully stressing the limits of flap control" to collect data on various future landing scenarios. The whole journey...
Back on the ground, Musk said the booster created a "rock tornado" underneath the rocket as it was lifting off. While SpaceX has not seen "evidence that the rock tornado actually damaged engines or heat shields in a material way," Musk noted that the company "certainly didn't expect" ...
They have been working on non-ablative heat shield technology which will assist greatly. X-15 skin temperature reach 1000F+ flying at Mach 6 in the atmosphere, and I would assume BFR during re-entering will be near that speed and temperature. Even if it can bring the speed down...
For micro-meteoroid protection, Starship, similar to the Columbus module of the ISS, is assumed to have a protective layer reinforced with Kevlar and Nextel, a so-called Stuffed Whipple Shield (SWS), which bursts incoming objects with three layers of protective material and thus prevents them ...
FAA initiated a 60-day consultation with NOAA Fisheries because the forward heat shield (HSR) will splash down a few km closer to shore than SpaceX assessed previously. It was previously determined that the HSR splashdown would have no significant impacts, and there's no re...