Who would have thought Elon Musk would contemplate establishing a bakery on Earth or in space?
It's not like the wealthy entrepreneur wants to create a bakery firm, such as making bread
or flower chips and buggers. This may lead you to believe that Musk is ready to compete
with major bakery firms in the United States, such as ACME Bread Company in California,
but before you do, let's get to the bottom of the true gist.
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Why would Elon Musk, who has built a world-class space company over the years, need a bakery
to bake French pastries for his hardworking employees? Unfortunately, this is how SpaceX
manufactures the most critical sections of their thermal safety systems.
So, we're not talking about a bread bakery in this context, but rather a facility where
SpaceX manufactures their heat shield tiles, and for many years, there's been a lot of
debate on the internet regarding its location, and now we know it's been operating out of
Cape Canaveral, Florida since 2019.
Musk explained that the heat shield's function is to protect the exterior of the starship
from overheating and sometimes burning out during re-entry. We're talking about tiles
that can protect the starship from temperatures of about 1,650 Kelvin, which is capable of
melting the stainless steel used in the starship's construction.
So, if you look at the heat shield in question, you'll find that it has a hexagonal form.
This shape was chosen since it could provide no direct path for hot gas to speed through
the gas. Despite the fact that this heat barrier is adhered to the body of the spaceship, Elon
Musk has stated that they want to develop a cooling mechanism that would remove heat
from the spacecraft's interior body.
In Musk’s voice; "Transpiration cooling will be added wherever we see erosion of the
shield, so the Starship needs to be ready to fly again immediately after landing – without
any refurbishment."
Actually, SpaceX intends to deploy this unique type of starship as the next generation spaceship
for deep-space re-entry, with each starship carrying 100 people.
The facility has been shrouded in secrecy for the most part, from the outside it seems
like a rather normal warehouse save for the external chemical and piping installations,
but inside workers are creating heat shield tiles for what will be the most advanced rocket
the world has ever seen.
In May 2020, the heat shield baking plant was inspected, providing us with a much better
understanding of what is going on there. It is estimated that around 20 people work there,
and that it is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with staff alternating through
three shifts. However, the number of personnel has very probably risen as we approach the
starship rocket's maiden orbital test flight, and the heat shield is an important element
of what, to give complete focus.
There was a time when a local photographer snapped images of one of the many dozens of
deliveries that arrive at SpaceX's Boca Chica Starship factory every month - remarkable
this time because of box labels referencing a "heat shield" and a "small bakery." In any
other circumstance, it would have been simply another unassuming cargo, most likely containing
the next batch of ceramic Starship heat shield tiles manufactured by SpaceX.
However, as the photographer with the Twitter handle @StarshipGazer who caught the photos
pointed out, the SpaceX crew that manages the Florida Starship thermal shield factory
nicknamed the factory as "Bakery."
The Bakery, as the name indicates, is one of two major Florida-based factories charged
with transforming raw materials into the black, hexagonal thermal shield tiles that would
be adhered to and distributed throughout the outside of Starship prototypes.
While the number of tiles has just recently began to increase, SpaceX has been developing,
testing, and perfecting Starship's heat shield technology for more than two years. SpaceX's
custom-built ceramic tiles first appeared in public in July and August 2019, first flying
into orbit on a Cargo Dragon spacecraft and then tagging along on Starhopper's stunning
150m jump a few weeks later. The Dragon went on to successfully reenter and splash down
in the Pacific Ocean approximately a month later, making it the first successful orbital
reentry as part of a Starship heat shield.
With the advent of full-scale prototype flight testing in the latter few months of 2020,
SpaceX began to significantly expand the number of tiles mounted on Starships, going from
a handful to hundreds in a matter of months. More than a thousand tiles were installed
on Starship SN16. While those tiles have essentially no experience acting as a heat shield on Starship
prototypes, launching them on suborbital test flights subjects those heat shield installations
to major thermal and mechanical stresses that are similar to, or worse than, what Starship
will need to withstand during launch and after reentry.
Given that at least a few of the ceramic tiles put on each prototype inevitably cracked during
testing, it's unclear how successful those coupon tests were. Unlike the Space Shuttle,
which depended almost entirely on critically brittle ceramic heat shield tiles, the tiles
on the Starship are affixed directly to its hull, which is constructed of steel rather
than an aluminum frame. At principle, the Starship's construction can endure – and
stay functioning in – temperatures reaching 800°C, whereas the Shuttle's heat shield
had to keep the vehicle's aluminum structure below 180°C.
Furthermore, the heat shield is only installed on one side of the starship, and this is the
only side that will face the sun when the starship is launched on Mars, and the starship
will be automatically controlled so that the heat shield will face the hottest area in
space during launch and re-entry. For the time being, we don't know if a pilot is driving
the starship to space, so Elon Musk and SpaceX know how they built the starship to be able
to direct itself to space and eventually land on the moon or Mars without a pilot. So you
can now begin to imagine the advanced technology that has been accomplished here.
Of course, Starship has yet to undertake an orbital-velocity reentry with 10,000 ceramic
heat shield tiles attached directly to its steel body, despite the fact that it will
be put to the test sooner or later. If successful, SpaceX's ultra-simple design may give Starship
significant advantages over the Shuttle, which eventually proved to be more risky than traditional
crew capsules and around the same price as a similarly capable disposable rocket. However,
Starship's heat shield will have to work hard to demonstrate that the massive spaceship
is actually up to the task of orbital reentry and is safe, reliable, and reusable.
Another noteworthy development is that spacex has been given a $8.5 million contract by
the UA Air Force Research Laboratory to enhance the production process for the next generation
heat shield technology. This is fantastic news because, with the newly found heat shield
technology, SpaceX may be remembered by the aviation or military sectors to work on something
better for them.
In terms of the US military, the $8.5 million contract SpaceX obtained may be viewed as
a rounding error, raising the issue of what the US Air Force hopes to gain from the agreement.
SpaceX has a lengthy history of working with the US military, particularly the Air Force.
The USAF, in particular, gave SpaceX two separate contracts totaling $73 million for the development
of its next-generation Raptor engine.
The US military has also indicated direct interest in the fully-reusable Starship launch
vehicle Raptor is meant to power, however reactions have been mixed and no significant
contracts have been inked.
Meanwhile, as this unexpected $8.5 million contract arrives, SpaceX is ramping up Starship
heat shield production at facilities in Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral – as hinted at
recently in several job postings and obscure regulatory documents. Simultaneously, teams
are boosting the fidelity and size of heat shield installation experiments at the company's
Boca Chica Starship facility, obviously preparing to install full heat shields on progressively
sophisticated Starship prototypes.
Now, here is a question for you, do you think that spacex starship isn’t control by any
pilot even while it’s in space?
Please do well to share your thoughts in the comment section below. Until next time, please
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