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Shuttle in its last days had antennas that protruded outside the plasma just enough for telemetry. Apollo and Artemis reentry are also direct entry from Lunar-E
by numpad0 7mo ago
Shuttle in its last days had antennas that protruded outside the plasma just enough for telemetry. Apollo and Artemis reentry are also direct entry from Lunar-Earth transfer orbit using ablative heat shields, so the plasma would be hotter and thicker than suborbital Starship shots with Shuttle style ceramic tiles.
- m4rtink 7mo agoI'm pretty sure it did not stick anything through the plasma sheet- that is impossible. You would eithe melt the thing or just shift the plasma sheet a bit. It forms as air is compressed on contact, simple as that. What IIRC was actually done was that some antennas were placed on the back of the shuttle & its size was big enough that the plasma bubble would not fully envelope it - it would be open up to space. And that antenna on the back would communicate with TDRS satellites through this gap, enabling contact through the whole re-entry. Starship does basically the same, just with Starlink satellites instead of TDRS.