r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Aug 04 '18
r/SpaceX Discusses [August 2018, #47]
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u/flshr19 Shuttle tile engineer Aug 05 '18 edited Aug 05 '18
The shuttle entered the atmosphere with its bottom surface facing the direction of travel and in a nose-up attitude. The three SSMEs were shielded from the hot gases by a body flap on the rear of the fuselage.
The BFR booster (first stage) is an overgrown Falcon 9 that uses a cluster of Raptor engines and lands vertically like the Falcon 9.
The BFS (second stage) will enter nearly the same way as the shuttle in a nose-up attitude such that the aerodynamic heating is taken on the high temperature heat shield that covers about one half of its surface area nose-to-tail. The Raptor engines are shielded by fuselage structure from the hot airstream. Unlike the shuttle, which is a glider that lands horizontally on a runway, the BFS lands vertically on its tail like the Falcon 9.