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#2226 2025-10-15 16:36:37
- SpaceNut
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- From: New Hampshire
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Re: Starship is Go...
What is Crunch wrap?
"Crunch wrap" is the informal name for a new material SpaceX is testing on Starship to seal gaps between heat shield tiles during atmospheric reentry. This material, often a ceramic fiber felt, is installed around each tile before it's snapped into place. After installation, the excess material is trimmed, creating a flush and sealed surface that prevents hot plasma from leaking through the gaps and damaging the underlying layers.
Why it's needed
Heat leakage: In previous flights, heat was able to seep through the gaps between the heat shield tiles, causing the underlying ablative material to burn away and creating white deposits on the hull.
Durability: The "crunch wrap" is designed to be quickly trimmed and allows the tiles to be more resistant to damage during reentry and to better withstand the stress of multiple flights without extensive refurbishment.
Rapid reusability: By improving the sealing and reliability of the heat shield, the "crunch wrap" helps SpaceX achieve its goal of making Starship a rapidly reusable vehicle.
How it works
Installation: Before a tile is mechanically attached, the "crunch wrap" material is wrapped around its sides.
Sealing: When the tile is pressed into place, the material is forced into the gaps between the tiles.
Trimming: The excess material that sticks out beyond the surface is then cut off, leaving a neat, flush seal.
Testing: This system was tested and performed well, leading SpaceX to plan on using it more extensively on future flight
Flight 11 Crunch Wrap™ TPS upgrade
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#2227 2025-10-15 17:29:45
- GW Johnson
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Re: Starship is Go...
In the previous post, the "kaowool" is a low-density ceramic or mineral fiber insulation. That low density means it has a low thermal conductivity, letting the tile get hotter without the tank shell seeing that heat addition so very much. You can only do that if you have a separate means of "tying" the tile in place over the insulation. In SpaceX's case, that is the tile retention pins.
That low density insulation has to be a mineral/ceramic fiber to take the temperatures at the interface with the tile. That way the tile can be a denser and therefore stronger and tougher ceramic (or other material, but apparently not iron-based from Flight 10). Denser is higher thermal conductivity, inherently. Which makes the inner tile face temperature much closer to the outer face temperature. Which is why they need the "kaowool" layer.
The "Pyron" ablative layer is not something I understand yet, except that it is the backup in case the tile is lost. It is related to PICA-X, based on what little there is to be read about it. PICA-X is what the Dragon uses for its ablative heat shield. "PICA" is an acronym for "phenol impregnated carbon ablator". The carbon is likely in a woven fabric form. This was originally a NASA thing, but it was expensive and difficult to fabricate. SpaceX subsequently did a cheaper- and easier-to-fabricate variant, and named it PICA-X. It is still phenolic reinforced with carbon fibers (likely in woven fabric form) and who knows what else, either way. I have seen no material specs for either form, much less "Pyron".
Apparently, the tiles used on Flight 10 were "metallic" in the sense of high iron content in some way. I know NOTHING about the actual material! But apparently it oxidized very fast during the one entry, quite unexpectedly. Whatever Flight 11's tiles were made of, it was something different, likely some kind of firebrick-like material. And those tiles worked a lot better.
Bear in mind that there was no insulation or backup underneath the space shuttle heat shield tiles. Those were a fragile and vulnerable low density ceramic, combining the high temperature resistance of the alumino-sililcate material and the low thermal conductivity of the very low density, into a single material. The new nose and leading edge tiles on X-37B are the first step away from that approach, they being a high-density ceramic locked onto a low-density ceramic underlayer. SpaceX seems to be pioneering yet a different approach. And it would seem to be working.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2025-10-15 17:49:36)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#2228 2026-01-03 15:21:58
- SpaceNut
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Re: Starship is Go...
starship is the only ship planned to go to mars.....Nasa is not, GW ships need builders and that not happening in current culture.
Even Bezo is finding that out...
If you do not know the mass we are sending then you are not going but for a show that we can do so and then stopping maybe never going again
SpaceX's Starship is the leading vehicle currently in development for human missions to Mars, designed as a fully reusable system to carry large crews and cargo, with plans for initial cargo flights by 2030 and human landings potentially in the late 2030s. NASA and other agencies are also developing concepts, often involving elements like the Orion spacecraft for Earth return and potential Deep Space Habitats, but Starship is the most prominent contender for the actual transit and landing.
SpaceX Starship
Concept: A massive, fully reusable rocket system (Super Heavy booster + Starship upper stage) designed for interplanetary travel, including Mars colonization.Capabilities: Can transport up to 150 metric tonnes (fully reusable) or 250 tonnes (expendable) to orbit, significantly more than any current rocket.
Mars Approach: Uses aerodynamic braking for entry into Mars' atmosphere and a powered vertical landing, similar to its Earth landings.
Timeline: SpaceX aims for the first cargo flights to Mars around 2030, with human missions following, possibly in the late 2030s.
NASA & Other ConceptsOrion & Deep Space Habitats: NASA's potential approach involves using the Orion capsule for crew transport to Mars orbit, paired with a separate Deep Space Habitat for the long journey.
Design Reference Missions (DRMs): NASA has studied various concepts, including nuclear thermal and solar electric propulsion, for efficient Mars transit.
Project Orion (Historical): An ambitious, but discontinued, 1960s project exploring nuclear pulse propulsion for massive Mars payloads.
Key Challenges for Mars Ships
Long Duration: Missions take many months, requiring robust life support and radiation protection.
In-Orbit Refueling: Starship needs to refuel in Earth orbit to have enough propellant for the Mars journey.Reliable Landing: Safely landing such a large vehicle on Mars is a significant technical hurdle.
In essence, SpaceX's Starship is leading the charge with a singular, reusable vision, while NASA and international partners focus on multi-component systems and gradual technological development for future human expeditions
For SpaceNut .... Your posts today look interesting and i'll go back to read them again more slowly ... I'm here to post an update on the OpenFOAM run that just ended.
I was ** really ** happy to see Calliban back in the mix today! The weekend is ahead. Perhaps we'll be lucky and win a bit more of his time.
We won't be hearing from GW for a while. He has ** two ** clients in hand and one in the bush! Plus the 50th Anniversary is coming up January 10th.
I had a chance today to think about our situation with the garage. It seems to me we haven't seen Capitalism at work yet, with the sole exception of SpaceX, which is driven by obsession and not by market forces.
It is possible that we have members who do not understand how Capitalism works.. Every once in a while a post shows up that makes me wonder.
We've been talking about a garage for equipment on Mars, and the idea of sizing a building based upon equipment that does not exist and therefore doing nothing is an example of the opposite of Capitalism. It might be an example of Big Government thinking.
Capitalism builds products people don't know they want, and then convinces them they want those products.
In this case, we already have a large and vibrant industry building prefabricated buildings for every conceivable purpose.
The idea of waiting to see what equipment shows up on Mars before building a maintenance facility is NOT the Capitalist way.
In my opinion, GW's rocket designs are quite likely to be superior to Elon's in every possible way, simply because they are designed for Mars, and not intended to be a one-size-fits-all concept. I suspect you have never read a word of GW's work. If you ** did ** read it, it made no impression, because you seemed to think Elon is the only human alive who can put people on Mars safely.
The only reason Elon is in the race is because he is a man obsessed. There is no economic justification for trips to Mars. If Elon succeeds, the economic case will happen automatically, because all the doubters will suddenly find money to invest.
(th)
I can not disagree there but its is about the $$$ he can get along the way. Bezo may catch up yet but he is learning the government process.
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#2229 2026-01-11 19:10:23
- SpaceNut
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Re: Starship is Go...
Why Elon Musk now says it would be a 'distraction' for SpaceX to go to Mars this year
SpaceX is unlikely to attempt a Mars mission in 2026 after all, according to CEO Elon Musk, marking a setback in his plans to colonize the planet.
“It would be a low-probability shot and somewhat of a distraction,” Musk told entrepreneur Peter Diamandis in a podcast recorded in late December and published this week.
In September 2024, Musk discussed SpaceX’s plans to send an uncrewed Starship rocket to Mars this coming year. At the time, Musk said the mission would test how reliably SpaceX could land its vehicles on the planet’s surface. If things went well, he estimated SpaceX could send crewed missions as soon as 2028.But Musk has dialed back his optimism over the past year. In May, he gave his company a 50% chance of being ready for a launch in late 2026, which would coincide with a narrow window that occurs every two years when Mars and Earth align. A few months later, he said the uncrewed flight would “most likely” happen in 2029.
August 2025, Musk said there was a “slight chance” of a Starship flight to Mars in November or December 2026 crewed by Optimus, the humanoid robots being developed by Tesla “A lot needs to go right for that.”
A mission to Mars hinges on SpaceX being capable of refueling Starship’s upper stage in orbit, a complicated task that Musk told Diamandis could be achieved toward the end of 2026. Accomplishing orbital refueling is also crucial for SpaceX to complete a recently reopened contract to carry NASA astronauts to the moon.
SpaceX was on track to demonstrate its process — which involves launching tanker versions of Starship into orbit — in 2025, a NASA official said the year before. But the company missed that target and now plans to attempt its first orbital-refueling demonstration between Starship vehicles in June, according to internal documents viewed by Politico.
SpaceX, which is now developing the third generation of the reusable 404-foot Starship rocket, has also had difficulty testing its vehicle. Its first three flights of 2025 were failures, while the remaining two launch attempts were much more successful. The next iteration of Starship will be a “massive upgrade” over its predecessor, Musk has said.SpaceX was on track to demonstrate its process — which involves launching tanker versions of Starship into orbit — in 2025, a NASA official said the year before. But the company missed that target and now plans to attempt its first orbital-refueling demonstration between Starship vehicles in June, according to internal documents viewed by Politico.
SpaceX, which is now developing the third generation of the reusable 404-foot Starship rocket, has also had difficulty testing its vehicle. Its first three flights of 2025 were failures, while the remaining two launch attempts were much more successful. The next iteration of Starship will be a “massive upgrade” over its predecessor, Musk has said.
In addition to preparing for Mars and lunar missions, SpaceX dominates the commercial launch industry and runs a successful satellite-internet business. It plans to go public later this year in what could be a record-breaking listing that could help fund its plans for Starship as well as for space-based data centers.
Although SpaceX probably won’t be headed to the red planet in 2026, twin spacecraft will make the journey this year. Blue and Gold, a pair of satellites developed by Rocket Lab were launched into space last November by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to fulfill NASA’s Escapade mission.
The spacecraft are expected to attempt a trans-Mars injection engine burn in November 2026 and arrive at the planet in September of next year, according to NASA. The satellites will be operated by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and will gather data that could help humans land on or even settle Mars.
This guy might be the first
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#2230 2026-01-29 18:58:10
- SpaceNut
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Re: Starship is Go...
SpaceX's Starship megarocket will get off the ground again in mid-March, if all goes according to plan.
The company plans to launch Starship's next test flight in six weeks, Elon Musk said Sunday (Jan. 25) via X, the social media platform he bought in October 2022 (when it was still known as Twitter).
The flight will be the 12th overall for Starship but the first of the bigger, more powerful "Version 3" (V3) iteration of the vehicle.
SpaceX is developing Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, to help humanity colonize Mars.
The giant vehicle consists of two elements: a booster called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or simply Ship. Both stages are designed to be fully reusable, and both are powered by SpaceX's Raptor engine.
Starship debuted in April 2023 and now has 11 suborbital test flights under its belt, five of which occurred last year. The most recent two, which lifted off on Aug. 26 and Oct. 13, were completely successful, but there was a hiccup in the leadup to Flight 12: The Super Heavy originally slated for the mission buckled during testing in November, forcing SpaceX to get another booster ready.
Flight 12 will mark the debut of Starship V3, which is slightly taller than V2 — 408.1 feet (124.4 meters) vs. 403.9 feet (123.1 m) — but considerably more powerful. V3 can loft more than 100 tons of payload to low Earth orbit, compared to about 35 tons for V2, according to Musk.
The increased brawn comes courtesy of Raptor 3, a new variant of the engine that will fly for the first time on the upcoming test mission.
Flight 12 will be a pretty big deal, because Starship V3 is the first iteration of the megarocket that's capable of flying to Mars. If things go well with this and other upcoming test missions — which must demonstrate key capabilities such as reaching Earth orbit and in-space refueling — SpaceX could potentially launch a small fleet of uncrewed Starship V3 vehicles to the Red Planet late this year, Musk has said.
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#2231 2026-01-30 11:26:53
- GW Johnson
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Re: Starship is Go...
So we have a revised airframe and a new engine, neither of which have flown before. Remember, this is still experimental flight test. Very experimental indeed!
I hope it goes well. The risk is rather high that it will not. There's a lot of changes between this and the earlier version that last flew.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#2232 2026-02-04 11:01:18
- GW Johnson
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Re: Starship is Go...
I finally found enough public information to understand what the heat shield tiles on Starship really are. They are a less expensive and more producible variant of TUFROC tiles used on X-37B. A lot of the savings comes from the fact that the same size and shape tile covers most of the ship, unlike the Shuttle or the X-37B.
These are a modified carbon-carbon composite type outer material, which has some sort of ceramic materials incorporated, which is tougher and higher temperature-capable than alumino-silicate ceramics. It is higher thermal conductivity than low-density aluminosilicates. The lower layer is low-density fibrous (in some way) alumino-silicate ceramic, which has the low thermal conductivity needed to keep the backside temperature down in a thin two-layer title.
I do NOT know exactly how these materials are made. But I have seen the black upper layer atop the white lower layer in photos of these tiles being installed on the pins, over a thin layer of some "ablative" that is a backup for lost tiles.
What they learned from flights 10 and 11 was that the alternative "metallic" tiles (whatever they were) were not reliable because of unexpectedly-high oxidation, and that they needed some sort of gap filler between the tiles. So they are going with this two-layer carbonaceous ceramic atop low density alumino-silicate (a variation on the TUFROC notion).
The gap filler has turned out to be some sort of crushable paper wrapping around each tile. I am only presuming that the excess paper sticking out of the gaps gets trimmed off during the installation process.
It is also my impression that the tiles are redundantly attached, with both adhesives and those pins. The pins may (or may not) stick up into the outer layer.
Sorry, but I am unable to pin it down any better that that! Not privy to internal specifications and data!
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2026-02-04 11:03:03)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#2233 2026-02-10 15:36:43
- SpaceNut
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Re: Starship is Go...
we now have a detour space x going to the moon instead of mars
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#2234 2026-02-16 10:29:35
Re: Starship is Go...
I discussed in the blog post the inflatable conical shield being investigated to allow the Cygnus cargo capsule to be reusable had the same ballistic coefficient as the Starship of ca. 60 kg/sq.m IF you take the dry mass of the Starship at the expendable 40 tons.
The problem is this conical shield was sized for a returning craft of mass of ca. 5 tons and it’s not certain how the conical shield would scale to higher mass, such as the Starship.
But there might be an example that would give us a reusable thermal shield for a vehicle the size of Starship. I’m thinking of the X-33/Venturestar.
https://i.postimg.cc/BQzmnzCm/08287-C50 … E87808.jpg
The length in meters was 38.7m and width 39m. For the dry mass, the total gross weight was 2,186,000 lbs, propellant weight 1,929,000 lbs, and payload weight 45,000 lbs; giving a dry weight of 212,000 lbs, or 96,400 kg.
Using a hypersonic drag coefficient of 2, and considering the triangular planform requires multiplying by 1/2 the length*width to get the area, the ballistic coefficient calculates out to be 96,400/(2*1/2*38.7*39) = 64 kg/sq.m.
Remarkably close to the ballistic coefficient of the Starship at the 60,000 kg mass of the expendable’s dry mass + fairing mass.
But the added weight of the metallic shingle TPS of the X-33/Venturestar can’t be too high to allow the ballistic coefficient to remain close to this value.
The areal density of the metallic shingle TPS was about 10 kg/sq.m:
REUSABLE METALLIC THERMAL PROTECTION SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT
Max L. Blosser*, Carl J. Martin*, Kamran Daryabeigi*, Carl C. Poteet **
*NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA
** JIAFS, The George Washington University, Hampton, VA, USA
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/200 … 095922.pdfThe metallic tiles had better resistance to impact and rain than the ceramics at about the same weight.
https://i.ibb.co/dG3vtHv/04-A5-BF90-A01 … -AFF11.png
Fig.3 Layered metallic sheeting separated by insulation.https://i.ibb.co/3mzTgs0/09-E4-AEC5-8-B … -FC7-E.png
Fig.21 Metallic TPS at same weight of ceramic tiles, ~10kg/sq.m.At a 10 kg/sq.m. areal density, the added weight covering just the lower half of the Starship would be (1/2)*Pi*9*50*(10 kg/sq.m.) = 7,060 kg, proportionally small enough that the ballistic coefficient would still be ca. 60 kg/sq.m.
This would be advantageous in that you don’t need added wings and you don’t need an additional conical shield.
BUT for this to work SpaceX would have to go back to the smaller, expendable mass of the Starship. SpaceX had tested the X-33 metallic shingles and concluded they were inadequate. But that was with temperatures developed with the higher 150+ ton Starship. With a lighter dry mass, much reduced temperatures result.
Bob Clark
GW, can you calculate the peak reentry temperature for a Starship at dimensions 50 meter long and 9 meter wide at the current ca. 160+ ton dry mass and at the previous estimate of Elon Musk of the expendable version only 40 ton dry mass?
I have a theory that the reason SpaceX has been unable to find effective TPS for the current Starship is because it is too oveweight at ca. 160+ tons. If it used the previous expendable dry mass of 40 tons then the X-33 metallic shingles that could withstand 1,000C could work.
Bob Clark
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
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#2235 2026-02-16 12:31:52
Re: Starship is Go...
NASA and the military brass are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the SpaceX progress on the Starship HLS lunar lander. Eric Berger in an article discussed some possible alternative options being offered that NASA could use to beat or match China in getting back to the Moon. The one deemed most likely would use Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mk1 cargo lander instead as a manned lander:
How America fell behind China in the lunar space race—and how it can catch back up.
Thanks to some recent reporting, we've found a potential solution to the Artemis blues.
ERIC BERGER – OCT 2, 2025 7:30 AM |
“Here comes the important part. Ars can now report, based on government sources, that Blue Origin has begun preliminary work on a modified version of the Mark 1 lander—leveraging learnings from Mark 2 crew development—that could be part of an architecture to land humans on the Moon this decade. NASA has not formally requested Blue Origin to work on this technology, but according to a space agency official, the company recognizes the urgency of the need.”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/h … h-back-up/This plan would not need any refueling launches, unlike the larger Blue Moon Mk2 manned lander. I’m puzzled though by the statement in the article it would use “multiple” Mk1’s. Presumably that would take multiple New Glenn launches?
I had suggested it might be doable using a single Blue Moon Mk1 launched on a single New Glenn. This though would require New Glenn reaching its intended payload capacity of 45 tons reusable, 60+ tons expendable:
Could Blue Origin develop a lander for Artemis III?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/s/DjyRJUVC2EBob Clark
The plan appears to use multiple Blue Moon Mk1 landers launched on multiple New Glenns, though not using refueling. It’s likely though it can be launched on a single New Glenn but in expendable format. The reason is a 45 ton payload capability as partially reusable likely means a 60+ ton capability as an expendable. Based on the 21 ton size of the Blue Moon Mk1 with the capability to do land 3 tons on the Moon as a one-way lander, its propellant/dry mass ratio is likely 18 tons/3 tons. Consider then the Delta IV Heavy’s upper stage, the same stage used as the interim upper stage on the SLS Block 1, could serve as the Earth departure stage for this lander. The spec’s on the DIVH upper stage are:
Second stage – DCSS
Height 13.7 m (45 ft)
Empty mass 3,490 kg (7,690 lb)
Gross mass 30,710 kg (67,700 lb)
Propellant mass 27,220 kg (60,010 lb)
Powered by 1×RL10-B-2
Maximum thrust 110 kN (25,000 lbf)
Specific impulse. 465.5 s (4.565 km/s)
Burn time 1,125 seconds
Propellant LH2 / LOX
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV_ … pabilities
Then this can make the ca. 3,000 m/s delta-v needed for translunar injection(TLI):
465.5*9.81Ln(1+27.22/(3.49 + 25)) =3,062.362
Blue Origin could use this stage or, more likely, derive a comparable one from two copies of the Blue Moon Mk1.
Bob Clark
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
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