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Just playing devil's advocate, literally everyone is worried about the tiles so surely they aren't launching without massive confidence that they are working pr
by zpeti 4y ago
Just playing devil's advocate, literally everyone is worried about the tiles so surely they aren't launching without massive confidence that they are working properly? Or have the team said that there are still issues with the tiling?
- ragebol 4y agoThey are not required for making orbit I suppose, only for safe reentry. But can't know how well it all works without trying, so going even if confidence is not perfect. But I guess they're pretty confident.
- manquer 4y agoThe next two prototypes already being built for a while now do not have tiling in them , that doesn’t suggest there is confidence in the design is final and stable . The addition delay and opportunity cost [1] [2] in perfecting re-entry is probably not worth it , I.e. better to launch now without second stage reentry than get it perfect and then launch [1] Starlinks on F9 [2] not being able to launch full v2 higher mass and volume on current gen
- XorNot 4y agoThey also don't need the tiles for the moon lander Starship variant.
- sebzim4500 4y agoTrue but without being able to reuse the tanker the mission would be ridiculously expensive by SpaceX standards.
- Kye 4y agoThere might be a point where they get cost low enough to trade some of those savings for things like simplifying engineering and increasing launch cadence.
- HPsquared 4y agoEven without the tiles, they can probably still test several parts of the reentry process. Just not once it gets too hot...
- cubefox 4y agoTheir upcoming upper stage prototypes don't have a heat shield anymore, and the FAA launch license mentions that they won't survive reentry. So reentry of the upper stage doesn't seem to be their focus in the foreseeable future. They are probably more interested in making the lower stage reusable, since it has many more (expensive) engines than the upper stage.