The starship space vehicle must travel to the moon or mars, no matter the amount of
money that will be drained in the project, there is no going back because everyone all
over the world, including the government, already knows that Elon Musk and SpaceX are
building a massive rocket that will travel to space.
Elon and his company won't stand a chance to be a coward in the face of the world on
this project.
We already know that Musk has never relented on any projects he ever started.
He has built several other projects that have been a source of massive benefits to the United
States and the world.
Taking, for instance, the well-detailed Tesla cars, the Starlink network, the boring company,
and the Starship, moon and Mars project.
Even though the A-list billionaire Elon Musk has been doing his best to make humans a multi-planetary
species and colonize Mars, the challenges encountered while building and testing the
Starship have become a bone in the ass.
But Elon Musk cannot back off at this stage, no matter the kind of devil or call it nightmare
the starship project has to face.
The only hope for SpaceX is to keep grinding until the Starship finally lands on Mars,
just as Elon has been promising the world.
Amidst all the challenges coming up, the Starship, including failure due to static fire test
of 33 raptor engine, re-enforcing strength to the launch pad so that it can withstand
vibration and many others; most importantly, the heatshield tiles has been the worse challenge
ever.
But guess what> the hexagonal thermal heat protection tiles keep failing off anytime
SpaceX fires up the Starship for testing.
This has happened many times, and it's been a series of hectic challenges for the company,
but there is a solution right now.
Let's talk more about the ultimate breakthrough suggested to SpaceX to stop the heat tiles
from falling off anytime the Starship vibrates severely during lift-off.
The Starship will travel at extremely high speeds when it re-enters the earth's atmosphere
from orbit.
These speeds will be in the range of seven to eight kilometres per second.
For the Starship to safely land on earth, the rocket's speed must be reduced to a point
where it can activate its engine in the opposite direction of the high speed.
This will reduce the amount of kinetic energy by converting it into thermal energy.
The Starship's average kinetic energy while re-entering the earth's atmosphere is approximately
13 megajoules per kilogram.
This is very high compared to the energy of explosives like TNT, which is approximately
4 megajoules per kilogram, meaning that the Starship will have sufficient energy to vaporize
almost anything that you can think of.
The good news is that the vast majority of the energy created during re-entry is absorbed
by the atmosphere, and at the same time, the rocket itself also absorbs some amount of
that energy.
The question now is, how does this kinetic energy become heat energy?
You will discover that the answer to the question is atmospheric drag or friction in many different
sources.
While this is true for aircraft that travel at supersonic speeds, it is not true for space
rockets that fly at hypersonic e speeds.
When a rocket re-enters the atmosphere of the earth at hypersonic speeds, it is possible
that a high heat, which will burn into flames, will be around it.
The speed of the air particles, and that of the rocket, all reach the same velocity, which
results in massive pressure and very high temperature, leading to a shock wave formation.
The atmosphere can't get out of the way easily.
The shock wave is where the majority of the re-entry heat is generated.
However, even a negligible amount, which ranges from about one to five per cent, is enough
for a rocket to endure during re-entry to generate a temperature that can reach up to
1600 degrees Celsius.
This must be avoided at all costs to protect the sensitive instruments and crew currently
on board the Starship.
It is necessary for the heat shields to activate so that they can either radiate or absorb
the re-entry heat and maintain the usual conditions inside the starship rocket.
Because of this, SpaceX uses an ablative heat shield, absorbing the energy as it heats up
and vaporizes the energy around the rocket.
But the problem with ablative heat shields is that they burn up.
They need to be replaced – which doesn't work if you want to re-launch a starship within
an hour of landing, as SpaceX intends to do with the Starship.
Ceramic thermal protection tiles are used instead of traditional ablative material to
shield the Starship from the heat of re-entry.
This is done so that the spacecraft may be reused more quickly.
These tiles, much like those used on the Space Shuttle, are incredibly thin, lightweight,
and delicate.
But the crucial problem is that hese tiles would shatter and fall off when the Starship
is fired up.
They would leave the ship with a great deal of force.
There are around 25,000 thermal protection tiles on each Starship, and the manufacture
of these tiles is a time-consuming process.
The "bakery" that SpaceX uses to produce heat shield tiles is located in Cocoa Beach, Florida,
and production of tiles will soon commence in Starbase.
If SpaceX wants to be able to fully outfit many Starships, it will need to find out how
to reliably produce more durable thermal tiles and install them.
SpaceX is doing exactly that, which is why they manufacture a tiny hue variation in the
tiles to experiment with.
What makes the Starship different from other rockets is that SpaceX mounted the heat shield
directly to the thin steel propellant tanks, which is a very risky move.
This thin layer also protects the rocket's airframe as a whole.
Spacex engineers seemed to have expected the risky move and had their robots fix the problems
on the outside.
When the Raptor engines on a securely fastened Starship are turned on and fired, the vibrations
should be much stronger than when the Starship is in flight.
This is because the test stand stops the propulsion forces from doing their job, which is to move
the Starship forward.
There were a lot of ideas about how SpaceX should stick the tiles to the Starship's body.
One of the ideas was that the company should turn the tiles slightly so that the top and
bottom are flat.
Then, make the tiles so that from the inside to the outside, the depth or thickness of
the top and bottom of each tile is 45 degrees.
It would also be better for airflow and keep the tiles in the row below from being tossed
around.
It would also help loose tiles stay in place because they would be partially covered by
the tile above them.
The tile's airflow would act like a wing, pressing the tile below it against the hull.
(And look more like a dragon).
Each tile must be stitched or wired to the skin and the tiles next to it.
To speed up the process of putting down tiles, mats of tiles could be sewn together ahead
of time and then stuck to the Starship's skin.
Or perhaps; two kinds of tiles will be used.
One that goes over the tiles next to it and one that goes under the tiles next to it.
The amount of overlap and overlap would make the connection less tight.
The tiles would float slightly because the Starship's skin bends and shakes.
The wiring connecting the tiles would be flexible, dampening vibrations and putting the tiles
back where they were.
There needs to be a way to hold the tile in place so that it doesn't fall off when the
different materials expand and contract.
How about a ball-and-socket fastener, where the socket is a little bigger than the ball
and lets it grow, but the ball can't get out of the socket?
What about a pin system, which is what they're already using.
The pins would have balls on the end, fitting into "sockets" on the back of the tiles.
Is this crazy or impossible to do?
Elon has fixed the problem with the missing tiles on Starship by putting that white, flexible
ceramic fibre matt between the back of the tile and the stainless steel of Starship.
That matt is probably something like Kaowool 3000, which can be used up to 2800F without
stopping (1528C).
Even if one or more tiles fall off, that mat will still be stuck to the ship.
An expanding anchor bolt for concrete shows how to make a metal sleeve that can expand
and lock a metal bolt to concrete or tile.
The problem is that this application is backward; it is fastening the tile to the bolt.
A hole in the tile that tapers might work.
Another technique is; once the tile is in place over the bolt through the tapered hole,
a tapered threaded anchor nut is twisted onto the bolt stud, securing the tile to the ship.
The hole and anchor nut are then covered with ceramic putty.
A torch is used to cure the clay putty.
In the end, something will have to be made so that a pre-made glove or sleeve can fit
over the whole spaceship.
Do you have any effective method spacex can use to always make sure that that heat shield
tiles sticks with the starship?
Take a deeper look into the Problem found in SpaceX Starship's during Heatshield Testing,
just click on the video.