You all certainly heard phrases like "Well Spacex all the technologies presented in NASA", and so on in this spirit. Like, the Space Company Ilona Mask itself does not develop anything. I will not go into a long lecture, explaining why all this complete nonsense, to put it mildly, I will give only one example. He will seem amazing many.
The other day it became known that on December 18th, 2020 Spacex won a tender for the development of "multipurpose heat protection systems for hypersonic devices". The Customer is the main command of the US Air Force, or rather the Research Laboratory of the Air Force. Contract cost $ 8,499 € 489. Information about this contract can be found on the US government site similar to the Russian public procurement platform.
If you carefully looked closely to the STARSHIP ship test prototypes, you could pay attention to that they were partially installed those the heat-stash tiles. This protective material itself is not something new.
They covered the lower plane of American ships of the Space Shuttle series, an unmanned orbital shuttle Boeing X-37, as well as Soviet reusable ships, of which in the space once there were only "Buran". Currently, the heat screen of PICA-X of its own development and production is equipped with all Dragon Spacex ships. When entering the Earth's atmosphere, it protects the piloted and cargo ships of Dragon, heating from 1376 to almost 2000 ° C.
Technologies together with time come forward, growing speeds of aircraft, and they need protective materials of the new generation, more subtle, light, heat-resistant, and of course more durable, remembering the sad fate of the Columbia Shuttle. And it was for the development of so many responsible material that Spacex was chosen.
In the description of the tender, it is said: "The goal is to improve the technologies for the production of thermal protection systems in order to provide low-cost large-scale production of the next generation TPS".
Everything is extremely clear and understandable. Spacex today is the leader in aerospace innovation. And the decision of the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is superfluous.
Ilon Mask, "... Tiles are made of ceramics, the hottest parts of the tiles can withstand temperatures up to 1650 Kelvin. This is equivalent to 2510 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat shield tiles have a hexagonal form so that the "hot gas flows did not have a direct path to accelerate and pass through the gaps".
