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Old 25th November 2024 | 05:45
  #878 (permalink)  
ORAC
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To my eye, there's some definite signs of thermal stress on the side there where the heat shield finishes. Hardly surprising, but shows the difference making it out of steel vs ally / composite makes to things.
Well, it is the last of the Mk 1s and they stripped off over 2000 heat tiles as well as programming a more extreme re-entry profile just to gather data - they didn’t expect it to survive.

The fact it did, and made a precise touchdown, shows the strength of the construction and over-engineering.

Every ton they can strip out of the design means another ton of payload to orbit.

V2 has a planned payload weight of 100 tons.

V3, has a planned payload weight of 200-250 tons.
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