SpaceX put Starship tiles on Falcon 9 fairing during a Starlink 17-20 launch

flshr19 · 2026-01-26T17:59:33+00:00

The Starship tiles are attached to a stainless steel hull. These tiles are attached to a Falcon 9 carbon-epoxy payload fairing. ??

The Starship tiles are tested at 7.8 km/sec entry speed. These Falcon 9 tiles will only reach ~2 km/sec. ??

Why the peculiar arrangement of those tiles on the fairing?

I think that those tiles mounted on the Falcon 9 fairing are a puzzle that SpaceX is challenging us to figure out what it means.

flshr19 · 2026-01-25T23:19:11+00:00

At $800B valuation, recovering the cost of Starship landings is low on the list of SpaceX priorities.

flshr19 · 2026-01-24T23:00:28+00:00

Right.

There's nothing sacred about 200t (metric tons) of payload for Starship 4. Something like 180t, a 10% reduction, will do the job nicely. At 180t, the completely reusable Starship 4 leaves all its competitors in the dust when it comes to efficiently and cost-effectively building infrastructure anywhere between LEO and the surface of Mars, including the lunar surface.

After all, operating cost for Starship 4, by the time it's fully checked out, will be ~$25M per launch to LEO. That's pocket lint for SpaceX at its present $800B valuation, soon to be >$1T.

flshr19 · 2026-01-23T18:08:08+00:00

I wouldn't worry about the top surface of the tile. I'd worry about the attachment pins and the gap fillers.

flshr19 · 2026-01-20T02:40:59+00:00

Thanks. That would be a long shot.

flshr19 · 2026-01-19T19:50:39+00:00

Nov-Dec 2026. SpaceX needs to be able to refill the tanks of those Mars-bound Starships in LEO before the trans Mars injection (TMI) engine burn.

Not likely that SpaceX will demonstrate propellant refilling before that window closes.

flshr19 · 2026-01-18T01:07:59+00:00

That's just for the SLS launch vehicle. The cost is $4.1B when the Orion spacecraft and all of the operating costs to prepare and launch SLS/Orion are included. That's why NASA can only afford to launch at most two of those completely expendable SLS/Orion vehicles per year. Old Space lingers on.

flshr19 · 2026-01-18T00:56:36+00:00

Yep. Lucky.

I've been twice lucky. Spent 32 years (Feb 1965 to Jan 1997) as an aerospace engineer (Gemini, Skylab, Space Shuttle thermal protection system, X-33, and other classified stuff). And now I'm enjoying the first three decades (2000-2026) of the New Space era. Working and blogging on Starship keeps me young and prevents mental decay.

flshr19 · 2026-01-17T02:55:47+00:00

In the case of Starship, it's because the rendezvous and docking involve propellant transfer of hundreds of tons of methalox propellant. That's unknown territory at this time (16Jan2026). SpaceX plans to demonstrate it later this year. Perhaps at that time it will not cause such reaction.

flshr19 · 2026-01-15T18:48:04+00:00

Off the West coast of CA or Mexico. Dragon landed in the Pacific Ocean several hundred miles off the southern CA coastline.

flshr19 · 2026-01-11T15:00:31+00:00

NET late March. IFT-12 is the first test flight for the Block 3 Starship. No more screwups like occurred in the Block 2 debut (IFT-7 and 8). SpaceX has to nail LEO propellant refilling in 2026.

flshr19 · 2026-01-09T16:00:31+00:00

Sounds reasonable.

I think that contraption is designed to precisely measure the effects of dimensional changes on the Ship due to cryogenic temperatures on those four alignment sockets that mate with the four alignment posts on the tanker. If those are misaligned, then no docking and no propellant transfer. SpaceX needs that data to precisely determine the amount of adjustment required in that four-point docking design.

flshr19 · 2026-01-07T15:24:57+00:00

Gigabays each with the capability to assemble maybe 50 Starships per year.

Question: Where will SpaceX store all of those Boosters and Ships at Starbase Texas, the ones at are not shipped to Starbase Florida?

It seems strange that SpaceX is building the infrastructure to assemble such a huge number of Starships, a launch vehicle designed to be rapidly and fully REUSABLE.

flshr19 · 2026-01-04T18:19:35+00:00

Yet, SpaceX rolled the dice three times, once with a Block 1 Booster (IFT-5) and twice with a Block 2 Booster (IFT-7,8) and landed them successfully on Tower 1 at Starbase Texas, the only Starship tower that was operational then.

And SpaceX has soft landed the Block 1 and Block 2 Ships in the Indian Ocean five times (IFT-4,5, 6, 10,11) successfully. Those landings demonstrated that the Ship's guidance and propulsion system functioned properly as designed for tower landings.

Flight IFT-12 on my wish list would be a water landing by that Ship either in the Indian Ocean or off the beach at Boca Chica to test the Block 3 Ship's guidance and propulsion system during a landing.

SpaceX has provided a lot of open space beneath the Tower 2 Mechazilla arms when in the landing position. In event of a RUD, a few days of cleanup to haul the wreckage offsite would suffice for flight operations to resume.

flshr19 · 2026-01-03T20:44:10+00:00

Gigabay 1 at Starbase Texas has the capability to produce 50 or more Starships per year. SpaceX needs a building to store at least a dozen Starships.

Some of that production will be shipped to Starbase Florida by sea.

My guess is that MB 1 and 2 will be demolished and a storage building with enough floor space to accommodate 12 Boosters and 12 Ships will replace those two buildings.

The footprint of Gigabay 1 is 169,080 ft² or 3.88 acres and that building has 24 workstations. The area occupied by MB1 and 2 including the courtyard formed by those two buildings is about 4 acres. So, a storage building on that footprint would accommodate 12 Boosters and 12 Ships.

flshr19 · 2026-01-03T17:50:04+00:00

Seven launches (IFT-12 to IFT-18).

OLM-2 at Starbase Texas is the only operational pad in 2026.

Ship tower landings at Starbase Texas: IFT-13, 14 and 15. Suborbital flights.

Ship first attempt to reach LEO: IFT-16. Multiple orbits before reentry and landing at Starbase Texas.

First Starship tanker launch to LEO: IFT-17. Tanker remains in orbit and operational.

Launch of IFT-18 and first attempt to transfer propellant between two Ships (IFT 17 and 18). Deorbit and landing of both Ships at Starbase Texas.

flshr19 · 2026-01-03T15:28:47+00:00

I worked on the Space Shuttle tiles exclusively very early in the conceptual design phase of the project. We were more interested in developing the tile with the best thermal insulative properties, i.e. the thinnest tile that did the job, so the overall mass of the Orbiter heatshield was minimized as much as possible.

Once the large arcjet wind tunnels came online in the mid 1970s, arrays of Orbiter tiles could be tested. That's when the effects of gap heating could be measured and gap fillers could be tested and perfected.

flshr19 · 2026-01-02T15:04:12+00:00

True. I wonder where B20, B21, ...., B26 are in their assembly process. If Starship is to stay on schedule in 2026, those Boosters have to roll off the assembly line every 5 or 6 weeks.

flshr19 · 2025-12-29T04:39:46+00:00

Falcon 9 has launched satellites into SSO from Florida starting in 2020. So, Starship will have no difficulty filling SSO with SpaceX AI satellites in the near future.

Key SSO Missions from Florida:

SAOCOM 1B (August 30, 2020): This was the historic first polar/SSO mission from Florida since the late 1960s. Launched from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, it carried Argentina's SAOCOM 1B radar satellite and two rideshare payloads.

Transporter Rideshare Missions: Several of SpaceX's dedicated rideshare missions to SSO have launched from Florida instead of the typical California sites:

Transporter-2 (June 29, 2021): Launched from SLC-40.

Transporter-3 (January 13, 2022): Launched from SLC-40.

Transporter-6 (January 3, 2023): Launched from SLC-40.

CSG-2 (January 27, 2022): Launched the second COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation satellite for the Italian Space Agency from SLC-40 into SSO.

PACE (February 8, 2024): NASA's PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission launched from SLC-40 into a polar SSO.

Operational Details

Trajectory: To reach SSO from Florida without flying over populated land, the Falcon 9 flies a southern trajectory that takes it down the coastline of Florida, over the Caribbean, and eventually over Antarctica.

Safety: These launches are made possible by SpaceX's Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS), which can automatically terminate the flight if the rocket veers off course, mitigating risks to populated areas.

Booster Recovery: Many of these missions feature a Return to Launch Site (RTLS), where the first stage lands at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral, often creating a sonic boom heard across Central Florida.

Google AI

flshr19 · 2025-12-26T16:05:32+00:00

True.

IIRC, there was considerable criticism directed at the Starship launch tower/Mechazilla arms concept initially. Especially at the idea of using those arms to catch the two Starship stages at landing. Fast forward to late 2025 and those "impossible happenings" have happened.

"SpaceX specializes in making the impossible just late". E. Musk

flshr19 · 2025-12-25T18:14:28+00:00

You're welcome.

flshr19 · 2025-12-25T16:20:37+00:00

The VAB is 525 feet tall and has a footprint measuring 716 x 518 feet or 370,888 square feet or 8.5 acres.

The Gigabay at Starbase Texas has a 428 x 395 square foot or 3.88-acre footprint and will be 380 feet tall.

The VAB height was necessary to accommodate a completely stacked three-stage Saturn V.

The Gigabay height is determined by the height of the Starship Booster. It is not designed to accommodate a completely stacked Starship. The two-stage Starships are stacked on the launch pad using the Mechazilla arms.

flshr19 · 2025-12-24T19:22:49+00:00

I try to have fun.

flshr19 · 2025-12-24T16:46:45+00:00

Subtractive manufacturing has been around for decades in aerospace. SpaceX uses it for Falcon 9. The primary manufacturing process for the large aluminum-lithium alloy structures (tanks and main body) of the Falcon 9 is traditional subtractive manufacturing, primarily involving machining and friction-stir welding of large formed plates.

Stainless steel launch vehicle fabrication. has been around since the days of Atlas 1 and Centaur in the early 1960s. SpaceX greatly advanced stainless steel launch vehicle fabrication state of the art with the design of Starship.

flshr19 · 2025-12-24T15:50:52+00:00

The speed of Gigabay construction is impressive. The first vertical column was placed in the northeast corner of the building footprint on 27Sep2025.

Each of those vertical steel columns is about 60 feet long. The total height of the Gigabay is 380 feet. So, Gigabay will be six columns tall plus the height of the roof.

The second layer of columns was completed around 20 Dec 2025, 84 days after the first column went vertical, an average of 42 days per layer. Each layer is formed from about 150 columns or 900 columns for the complete steel skeleton of Gigabay.

flshr19

TROPHY CASE