Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Starship’s new "Crunch Wrap" Heat Shield

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Starship’s new "Crunch Wrap" Heat Shield · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Just a few weeks ago, on August 26th, engineers oversaw the 10th
• 0:03
  full scale test of Spacex's Starship stack system using the
• 0:08
  Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage.
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  This launch originated from Starbase, Texas, just north of
• 0:14
  the Mexican border off Hwy. 4. SpaceX aim to resolve propulsion
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  and propellant handling issues that had Hanford previous
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  flights. Things blew up, and the team
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  also wanted robust data on Starship's heat shield, which is
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  a fast matrix of thousands of tiles.
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  The shield. The vehicle.
• 0:34
  Stainless steel hall during the searing reentry phase.
• 0:43
  Think about this. This flight's outcome was a
• 0:45
  major technical win. Starship lifted off, completed
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  staging and guided itself more than an hour later to a
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  controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
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  It's huge. They were northwest of
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  Australia. The vehicle missed its bullseye
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  splashdown target by just three meters, which is pretty close,
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  but not close enough to catch it on the arms.
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  There was a buoy there that caught the footage, and it was
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  absolutely beautiful. But Starship belly flopped into
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  this and then lighting three of its six Raptor engines that
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  flipped upright before settling into the oceans.
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  Now there was clear evidence of post flight thermal and
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  structural wear though, with scars visible on Starship's rear
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  and control flaps. Any distinctive rusty orange
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  streak right down the middle. It was huge.
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  You can see it. It looked like the SLS rocket,
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  but Elon Musk identified the orange coloration as oxidation.
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  No big deal. Starship carried experimental
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  metallic heat shield tiles for this flight.
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  The company wanted to compare their durability with the more
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  traditional ceramic tiles, and unlike previous test flights,
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  nearly every tile, regardless of its type, survived the entire
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  mission. Engineers deliberately affixed
• 2:00
  just three metal tiles to 1 area, hoping they would simplify
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  the heat Shields construction and also the maintenance of it.
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  Replacing those other tiles is a pain.
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  It takes days. The result though?
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  The metallic tiles oxidized fiercely in the high oxygen
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  atmosphere. It did not effectively insulate
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  against heat. The dramatic color of orange
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  echoed the old external fuel tanks of the space shuttle SLS
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  as well. So this is a technology that
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  NASA tested decades ago but never took operational.
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  You can drill further down into this, too.
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  While the metal tile test failed, it delivered valuable
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  lessons for SpaceX engineers. They discovered substantial
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  heating and also erosion wherever gaps between tiles were
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  the largest, and sometimes heat migrated between the tiles and a
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  bladed a backup thermal barrier underneath them.
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  Scary. It's similar to the white
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  ablation layers used on Spacex's Dragon capsules.
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  Small areas near Starship's nose were also left deliberately
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  exposed to examine direct heating effects.
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  This led to white blotches where the underlying material ablated.
• 3:15
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  without the setup headaches. Now back to Starship.
• 3:59
  A robust, rapidly reusable heat shield remains Spacex's biggest
• 4:03
  unsolved engineering problem for Starship.
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  The structure must handle violent launch vibrations,
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  extreme heating, temperatures cycling and also sudden
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  deceleration forces as the rocket returns to Earth and
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  perhaps is caught by giant ground based arms.
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  Star based Texas for immediate relaunch.
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  Now. The classic ceramic tiles on
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  NASA's shuttles demanded hand inspection and repair.
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  People had to go check them out. This undermined rapid reuse.
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  It took days sometimes. SpaceX envisions A Starship that
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  can launch, land and fly again in one day.
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  That'll remain out of reach until heat shield ceiling is
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  reliable and also robust. SpaceX has a long way to go now.
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  Spacex's solution, though, centers on a new material
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  engineers called Crunchwrap. Technicians wrap each ceramic
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  tile the kind of thermal gasket, before attaching it to Starship,
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  using robots to snap the tiles into place.
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  The Crunchwrap fills spaces between tiles, preventing heat
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  from poking through places once crammed with complicated gap
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  fillers on the shuttles. Gap fillers sometimes escape
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  their slots mid flight, creating risk, and SpaceX wants to avoid
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  this. The upcoming 11th test flight
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  will see the entire shield wrapped in this new material.
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  Crucial experiment to validate tile sealing on operational
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  Starships. Flight 11 will repeat the now
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  familiar suborbital arc, keeping most mission variables constant
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  to create a strong baseline for analyzing the new heat shield
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  design and the Crunchwrap. The team will avoid introducing
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  too many design changes at once and focus instead on preparing
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  for next year's pivotal upgrades.
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  Now in preparation, engineers static fire test the assigned
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  the Super Heavy booster, which had already been recovered using
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  catch arms in a prior flight to guarantee reliability and
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  beyond. Flight 11 though version 3 of
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  both Starship and Super Heavy. They are the next watershed for
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  the program. These Block 3 vehicles will
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  first fly in suborbital tests and these validated systems.
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  SpaceX will send one in orbit targeting the 13th mission or
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  soon after. For the first complete circuit
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  of Earth. This is huge.
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  Achieving orbit will lay the groundwork for in space
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  demonstrations such as large scale propellant transfer and
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  also the much anticipated attempt to catch and reuse A
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  Starship after it's been all the way around our planet.
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  Now, the jump from suborbital to orbital missions is significant.
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  Every test so far has brought Starship back to Earth before it
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  circled the globe, allowing SpaceX to maintain precise
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  control over debris and the recovery process.
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  To send Starship into orbit and bring it back, the team must
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  guarantee the ability to land Starship exactly where it wants.
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  A prerequisite for safe, reusable missions involving both
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  uncrewed satellites and also human crews and orbital Starship
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  will unlock a host of new engineering challenges and
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  mission possibilities. The ship can begin deploying
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  larger batches of next generation Starlink satellites,
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  which supports Spacex's growing communications empire.
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  Most importantly, orbital missions will make propellant
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  transfer in space possible. So this is absolutely necessary
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  for flights to the Moon and to Mars because a fully fueled
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  Starship can't lift off from Earth with enough propellant for
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  the outbound journey and landing on Mars.
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  Major efforts in 2026 will focus on this new technology, the
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  crucial step for leaving Earth orbit.
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  Hey, I got to ask you a favor. If you'd like Starship content
• 8:01
  and there's a subscribe button over there, that's what I'm
• 8:03
  going to talk about. Give me a second of your time.
• 8:05
  That's all it takes, a second of your time.
• 8:06
  And I promise you, I've had this YouTube channel for 10 years
• 8:09
  now. I'm planning on doing it for 10
• 8:11
  more. So please hit the subscribe
• 8:13
  button right over there. And when you do, it'll help you
• 8:17
  stay up to date with more Starship news.
• 8:20
  Thank you so much. Flight 10 also delivered key
• 8:23
  lessons from Super Heavy's own control splashdown.
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  Engineers deliberately sent the booster back for a water landing
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  in the Gulf of Mexico rather than attempting an on pad catch
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  again. This exposed the rocket to
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  greater aerodynamics and structural stress on descent,
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  allowing the team to see just how well the booster could steer
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  itself during the final approach phase.
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  The observed aerodynamic behavior during descent did not
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  match Spacex's computational models or even wind tunnel data.
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  The booster showed greater stability in actual flight than
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  in simulations, which even surprised SpaceX as senior
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  engineers. And SpaceX invited outside
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  researchers at universities and government agencies to help
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  investigate these discrepancies. While SpaceX moves rapidly once
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  it finds a solution that works, broader understanding of why the
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  booster behaves more stably in real life could lead to even
• 9:23
  better control systems and safer future missions for Starship.
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  In the future, the rapid engineering cycle on Starship
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  typifies Spacex's philosophy. Test new ideas directly and
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  frequently, iterate based on hard data and replace or improve
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  anything that falls short. Just two weeks after Flight 10,
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  the company not only knows where the heat shield failed, but it
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  also has a fix in a hand and ready for the pad.
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  The Crunchwrap test in Flight 11 will determine if this approach
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  brings the dream of daily reusability and or world class
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  rockets closer to reality. If it works, Starship could
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  finally fulfill its greatest promises, not only for SpaceX on
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  Mars, but for NASA's lunar landing plans and a new era of
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  reusable Space Flight.