SpaceX Is Adding Another Heat Shield Layer To Starship 

You should tag animations with "ANIMATION", especially for people who are just now taking an interest, as the animations look real and the actual footage looks unreal.

The heat shield seems like the greatest barrier to rapid and full reusability. If anyone can solve this problem, though, it's SpaceX!

The one thing that SpaceX is amazing at is the project management of their construction teams. That being said I think it's incredibly risky for them to attempt a super heavy booster catch until they have the second launch tower built.

Those metal sparks at reentry could been the metal pins securing the tiles.

The QD arm needs to rotate out of the exhaust. It's just too much.

It would be insane if they launched in a month. I’m betting on 2.5 months realistically.

SpaceX will iterate on the heat shield and eventually have a robust system in place. Starship v2 will specifically move the flaps to avoid the hinge issue.

There's no doubt that SpaceX will figure it out, thanks for the update!🚀🚀👍👍

TheSpaceBucket, amazing video keep it up dude

this reentry was at barely orbital speeds imagine how intense it would be at translunar or transmartian reentry speeds

Thanks for the update!

Every Starship advancement is a nail in every other rocket's (F9 an FH excepted) coffin. The corporate efficiency is actually beautiful to watch!

So they are nearly at par with the space shuttle… tiles were the weakness there too

TheSpaceBucket, You're so talented! I had to hit the like button!

Perhaps the new ablative material also dampens some of the vibration transmitted to the tiles.

Good report. Thank you!

TheSpaceBucket, every video is a treat, keep them coming

Tanks for the content !

Sounds like some sort of tile interlocking might be called for. Instead of pure hexagon tiles.

Your channel has the best updates, thanks!

When I first learned about the heat shield they were going to use, I was pretty skeptical considering the history of the space shuttle and its heat shield tiles. At this point, I'm still not convinced but, I was glad to see that it did perform as well as it did on IFT4. I'm still not completely convinced though.

Cant wait to see this! Thanks for the episode!

There was a thinner tile next to the missing tiles. I thought that could be a lighter tile but that could have been the secondary oblative tile.

We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.

Sounds like a good idea but im wondering how much heavier it will make the ship.

Thank you for straight up info, well presented

I like the format, straight to the facts.

It would be great to create a paint on ablative.

Making 2 sets of steering flaps slightly off-aligned at the back. So when re-entry, the ones most located at the back of the ship stay more out of the heath... and it provides an extra safety for when one set fails out i think.

I wish SpaceX would test a section of the heat shield with a transpirational cooling area to see if their original idea has merit. Those tiles must add a lot of weight. And if they have to add an ablator behind the tiles, that's even more weight. So the question becomes, would the fuel/weight penalty for using transpirational cooling be more than the penalty of a conventional heat shield? And would the holes required to expel the cooling vapor be too prone to clogging to be reliable? If that method proved effective, I think it would be much better for reusability than heat shield tiles. The tiles on the Space Shuttle were its most maintenance intensive area that slowed down reuse and increased costs massively. I hate to see SpaceX be forced down that road. They chose stainless steel for its cost, ease of manufacture, and durability. It is time to try to maximize its utility by trying the transpirational cooling method.

Well from the launch video the tiles from the flap didn’t really start coming off until the high pressures of the atmosphere not the hottest zone with the plasma build up. Yet, the heat most likely weakened the shield and how it’s mounted. So adding a flexible carbon fibre skin layer under the shield would probably help. They could wrap it over the flaps but maintain mobility flap control.

the flap seemed to survive ok for most of the reentry, including the highest temperature part, but then start falling when the speed and temperature were both lower, must have been a cumulative effect of the whole process?

Love your videos, any way you could add background music to your videos?

Ablative sounds right. It's just a good tradeoff in terms of extra weight of ablative material vs fuel. Temps for that could be much cooler than super high temp tiles constantly being heated.

I hope they go back to active cooling. Seemed so cool

I kinda like the idea of a composite UO2 and BeO tile that would be good to 5000° F.

Great channel indeed. Just the news, no bs. Super

That active cooling is looking like better and better alternative.

I am amazed SpaceX managed to get booster landing in the sea.

The thing is gonna be a little heavier than it already is? Amazing...

Seems that they need some kind of "pod" around the flap hinges that can be jettisoned when they get through all that re-entry heat. The hinges appear to be vulnerable. As stated the Starship is to be quickly turned around and re-used.

How about attaching the tile together like a belt that way you can make it as long or short as you want if one comes loose it still connected to the other ones

YOUR TRULEY NUMBER 1 LOVE THE SPACEBUCKET!!!!!

Elon said they are gonna put on a twice as strong heat shield, was that ment on the hole ship or just on weakpoints?

Surely the left front flap also got destroyed as we did not see any more rear facing views from the camera attached to the left front flap as the right front was burning.

If they do manage to land the booster, they are then stuck with an old booster on the pad that they then need to dismantle. I guess the chance to see up close the exact wear on it would be valuable, but it will require quite a bit of dismantling effort afterwards.

Please correct me if I am wrong: after the 3rd launch I said that the structural changes in Starship body were necessary. I described what changes. I expected that the 4th flight will be delayed because of it. Nothing like this happened, and now we hear about structural changes in Starship's body. Is it true?

HE IS ALWAYS ON TOP OF HIS GAME. HE IS JUST A MASTERPIECE ✨️

Multiple heat shield is best solution, tiles stick together or separate ss plate with tile ( wherever require) recommended

More cameras and a daylight landing would be helpful, too.

Epic! 😎

May be the flaps should be made of matrix ceramic instead of stainless steel in the critical areas.

Wonder how much weight that will add.

Go go go !

Is it possible to also add a magnetic field around the starship for more redundancy against ionized gases .

I'm starting to think that Musk is serious about reusing the Starships. Let's Go!!!

It'd be cool if they could just spray paint the heat shield on. Like foam that hardens into a magical substance.

It will be interesting to see what their plans are for the Starship portion of the spacecraft - will it be suborbital again, or will they attempt at least one full orbit before landing?

At some point, even though the reusability might not be perfected, Starship will be able to confidently deliver payload to orbit. So it might turn profitable and useable before reusability is achieved, at which point they can take their time to perfect the design while not going at a loss with each launch. Amazing what they’ve already achieved and shown capable of.

I'd be very surprised if they attempt a catch on the next attempt. If they did, they must be quite sure that they can rebuild all the infrastructure there quickly so it doesn't set them back from future launch attempts. Also wonder if the mechazilla arms can handle slight tilts of the rocket as it lands. Wouldn't want the catch to fail because the grid fins snap off because of the tilt.

And the front fins are the "stops" for the mechazilla catch recovery. You weaken or lose the fin, what is the alternate recovery for Starship? A direct landing?

But how would the ablative material get replaced after a tile falls off, though? Seems like it could be an awfully tricky affair.

Persobally I think they should make a large solid section of heat shield with no small tiles. Make it to fit exactly onto the starships body shape.. Hard to do once.. but once they have a production process for one large solid heat shield they can replace the entire thing fast.

wouldnt an ablative layer just make it even more difficult to check for damage or at least slower and more difficult?

If the material is ablative, that implies a necessary servicing after every launch, because material is lost in the process of heat dissipation.

They can launch in one month if it’s the booster catch that takes priority over the flap issue. Flap redesign can be tested on land. Can’t it?

Where can i find yesterday's steam?

Use at least 3-4 seconds scenes before switching to the next.

To solve the problem with the burning flap, SpaceX should attach it on the back of the rocket where there is no abrasion.

I mean we knew this. They told us before the last launch. It was one of the test tiles

Real dragons have scales for a reason.

A shielded hinge deflector.

I love alll SpaceX, and Tesla. Elon Musk have a special place in my heart. But i still think that BFR would be great as a Space Plane on Second Stage, some modern version of Space Shuttle that still can land on back/stand up on planets/moons without atmosphere.

Probably the dragon heat shield ablative material.

Why not make one giant tile in the shape of the fuselage?

One weird thing I don't 100% get, is how the booster makes it all the way out (enough to where there's almost 0 gravity - we see the ice just drifting away) and can make it back without heat tiles, yet SS has this issue. Is there another layer/barier of sorts to the atmosphere that ship is really going beyond then plunging back through?

The fact that Musk wants to add a secondary heat shield as backup to me is a big deal because he's all about making starship as light as possible so the fact that he wants to add weight I'm thinking they saw something add all of the testing

Another heat shield layer... at the cost of payload, sadly. It'll be interesting to see if they manage to lift a payload.

2 tons of propellent is not a small amount. I think its actually like 6 tons

Overlap the tiles like dragon scales

Make sense & gets rid of the wing flappers.

Using ablative materials, wont this drastically increase turn around time ?

Launch in 1 month? SpaceX will have to rebuild the Starships flap area before going anywhere, 4 week good luck with that.

SR-71 / A-12 Blackbirds used RENE 41 and Hastelloy X inside it's exhaust nozzle to shield the nozzle's titanium outer structure. The wing skin and fuselage had fuel cells purged with nitrogen gas. The fuel was the coolant for the structure of the aircraft as well as various system components. This also preheated the fuel prior to engine injection. This prevented heat soaking into the aircraft. The Space X rocket flaps only need cooling for a short period of time. A tried and true system that flew operationally for nearly 40 years and still holds all the records it broke. That's why Elon Musk gave his child the middle name of "A-12".

Maybe make the flaps and hinges out of tungsten or a tungsten-alloy - no need for heat-tiles!

LETTTTSSSSSSS GOOOOO

i wonder how much a starship recovered from the ocean, would be worth to the right buyer? where did they say it landed again?

what about a tungsten/titanium alloy in the fin seal gap area it will weld to steel and tungsten has a melt point over 6000 degrees it's heavy but alloyed with titanium would cut weight?

being able to use starship like a few hours again after launch seems very impossible. But its spaceX what did yoi expect

I still don't understand why they went with heatshields, haven't we learned from the Space Shuttle that if one of those tiles that are in a critical area fails the hole thing is compromised? Also, there's a reason why they don't fly the shuttle again immediately despite it being capable of landing, they would need to inspect all of the systems including replacing the tiles and inspect it again once the whole thing has been refurbished which will take a long time. Is that the plan here though? Make a fleet of Starships so when one is being refurbished they can send another one immediately?

Isnt Starship already way heavier than projected? This additional layer surely wont help.

I expect a destroyed launch tower if SpaceX tries to catch a booster. It seems like a more logical solution is to suck it up, take the weight hit, and put landing legs on the booster, then let it land on a pad mounted on rails. The landing pad could do double duty for propulsive landings of Starships. I mean the damned thing is eventually going to need landing legs for Mars anyway. Might as well suck it up now and put them on. The rails would allow them to move the booster back to the launch pad for reuse, while protecting the extremely expensive and valuable launch pad. Putting so much important equipment on the Stage 0 launch pad might be OK for saving weight, but it is an enormous risk. Destroying a pad is expensive and cuts your launch abilities in half, assuming you have a second pad. Even if they "perfect" catching a booster or Starship or both, SpaceX's devotion to the "no part is the best part" ethos works against the redundancy that is required for reliability. That makes the odds of a malfunction or hardware failure more likely, and the danger of a stage 0 disaster an expectation somewhere down the line.

Speaking about "safety nets"...

I think the gridfin heatshield was damaged by the chopsticks when it loaded the starship onto the booster on the final time before launch.

Did SpaceX say why the engine on the booster shut down?

Try a smaller rocket with the various tiles or surfacing and run it through the reentry tests. Why such a huge device to test ablatives ??? No quick turn around for this setup. Bummer but just scale it, cracks and dislodging fixes should not burn through it. Installing electro-gravs will also help reduce the mass/fuel needed, ask Eugene Podkletnov how to do this.

Good content, much repetition!

Dinner plates for Mars!

0:55 If the flap burning up was such an easily-predictable failure, then why didn’t SpaceX predict and account for it?

Have they flown the big booster by it self ? If so never seen it