“Metal tiles … did not work so well,” he said. “They oxidized extremely pleasant in the high oxygen environment. So this beautiful orange color, a bit like a [space] Shuttle The color, perhaps paying tribute to the shuttle program, was created by these three small metal tiles on the top. “”

Gerstenmaier has a talent to explain complex technical concepts in a digestible way. He started his career as a aerospace engineer working on the NASA space shuttle program in 1977. He climbed NASA’s levels to become head of the agency’s human space flight program, then joined SpaceX in 2020.

Experience with metal tiles is emblematic of how SpaceX develops the spaceship. The engineers of the company move quickly to make changes and integrated new conceptions in each test flight. Metal thermal shield tiles are not new technology. Nasa Tested them in laboratories in the 1970s But never stole them.

“The thinking that we learned a lot by taking them to the run, and we always had protection against protection against people they did not cause a problem,” said Gerstenmaier. “In most tiles, there are fairly important shortcomings, and this is where we see the heat pass and unfold.”

A mastery of the thermal shield of Starship is vital for the future of the program. The thermal shield must be durable for Starship to be quickly reusable. Musk Eyes Reflying Starship within 24 hours.

NASA’s reusable space shuttles used approximately 24,000 delicate ceramic tiles to protect them from the hottest temperatures of the start of the school year, but the materials were delicate and damage, requiring renovation and hand -to -betaeen mission retouching. SpaceX dragon crew capsules have a reusable structure that underpins the thermal shield, but the thermal shield material itself is only used.

For Starship, SpaceX needs a thermal shield that will resist the rigors of the space flight – intense vibrations during the launch, the extreme thermal cycles in space, the reintegration heat and the crushing of the capture bran of the launch ramp at the end of each mission. Musk called the reusable thermal shield of the ship The “largest” engineering challenge for the Starship program.

Continuing its presentation, Gerstenmier underlined a white plot near the top of the Starship thermal shield. This, he said, caused the heat that follows the gaps of Betty in the tiles and the myty of the underlying material, a thermal barrier derived from thermal shield on the spacecraft of SpaceX dragon. Technicians also intentionally withdrawn certain tiles near Starship’s nose to test the vehicle’s response.

“It is essentially a white material that is on Dragon, and it abstains, and when it is slapped, it creates this white residue,” said Gerstenmaier. “So what it shows us is that we have a heat essentially in this region, the tiles, let’s go under the tiles, and this Ablativi structure abstains below. We therefore learn that we have to seal the tiles.”

The main structure of starship is made up of a special stainless steel alley. Most of the other spacecrafts designed for the start of the school year, such as space shuttle and the dragon, are aluminum. The higher melting point of steel makes the vessel more indulgent the thermal shield damage than the shuttle.