SpaceX has just submitted its Starship spacecraft to a series of tests which have seen its hexagonal heat shields barraged by heavy amounts of intense flames, and Elon Musk has shared a tantalizing video post of this work which was conducted to prepare the Starship for its future deep-space missions.
As Space reports, the hexagonal heat shield tiles of the Starship will need to be in tip-top shape to protect the spacecraft as it makes its return into the Earth's atmosphere, which means that SpaceX has been working around the clock to prepare these tiles, along with the spacecraft's Super Heavy booster, for its future journeys to both Mars and the moon.
On Sunday, March 17, Elon Musk excitedly wrote that his company was "testing Starship heatshield hex tiles," and shared a video on Twitter of nine hexagonal tiles being shot through with heavy flames.
After this post, Musk stated that the fiery tests of the Starship's heat shield tiles had been an astounding success, despite enduring heat which reached temperatures of 1,650 degrees Kelvin. To put this into perspective, this is equivalent to 2,510 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1,377 degrees Celsius.
Musk described the hexagon shape of these heat shield tiles as being absolutely perfect, as this particular shape contains "no straight path for hot gas to accelerate through the gaps."
