Recovered SpaceX Starship Heat Tiles

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Many SpaceX Starship heat tiles fell off during the last orbital launch. The number of heat tiles that fell off were so high that one group of people have found some that washed up from the ocean after a storm.

The heat tiles are light and fragile. SpaceX must determine improved ways to prevent the tiles from falling off during the next launch in about 6 weeks.

12 thoughts on “Recovered SpaceX Starship Heat Tiles”

  1. Stainless Steel Velcro tile attachment, a COTS product, might work great with inherent vibration isolation and excellent damping.

  2. Amazing we are still dealing with the problems that plagued the old Space Shuttle. Atmosphere is a bitch. Well, unless you want to breath.

  3. [ SiC (silicon carbide) sublimation point ~4890°F(~2700°C) (304L intermittent ~1600°F, cont. lt ~800°F with aqueous corrosion probable), thermal conductivity ~320-350W/(m*K) (304L ~12W/(m*K), 304 ~16W(m*K)), specific heat ~750J/(kg*K) (water ~4200J/(kg*K), 304L ~200-500J(kg*K)), expansion coefficient ~2.25-4.3/(10^6*K) (304L ~17/(10^6*K)), density ~3.0-3.2g/cm^3 (304L ~8g/cm^2), compressive strength 3900MPa, hardness 2800kg/mm^2 (~25GPa, ~66-84(-92)HRA) (304L ~657N/mm^2=~0.66GPa, ~82HRB, ~15HRC, ~190 HB), modulus of elasticy ~400GPa (304L ~200GPa, elongation ~45-58%), tensile strength ~250-1500MPa (304L ~190MPa, ultimate ~550MPa), SiC: precaution against inhalation ]

  4. Tiles were a bad idea.
    Scales are the answer, scales overlap each other.
    You can lose one and still have full coverage.
    Add in ability to move the scales and you can use them for flight control during atmospheric decent.

      • You could still use scales. Because the scales would overlap, you could make each one lighter. My idea is embed bolt thread into the under side of the tile and bolt those tiles down. The old problem with that is the tiles probably need to be able to flex and move a little. The threads would have to move a little. Maybe with special washers.

    • Scales are terrible! The overlap is useless waste of materials when weight savings is important. Spending a few grams reinforcing them is better than spending tens to overlap.

      • Tile attachment is NOT working.
        The third flight was shedding tiles like an old hound sheds flees!
        If Scales are not OK, then try electropermanent magnets for attaching the tiles.

        • You know, at that point the weight would be such that you might as well use a laminated Inconel heat shield, or go back to the idea of transpiration cooling using extra propellant.

          Besides, at the temperatures the tiles reach, any feromagnetic material would be well beyond it’s Curie point, and no longer magnetic.

          I see basically two possible problems here:

          1) The noise level at liftoff is so high it’s cracking the tiles. Certainly this is possible.

          2) The tile attachment is not properly designed from a kinemetric standpoint, they’re over-constrained. However, I’ve seen pictures of broken shed tiles that really suggest this isn’t an issue.

          • You raise an interesting point about the tiles being vulnerable to “noise”. Perhaps it would make sense to look at the acoustic resonance the tiles are exposed to. And design them at the molecular level to be transparent to sound at those frequencies, or “deal with” such forces so as not to be destructive. This sounds very doable…

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