Recovered ceramic heat shield tiles, which are designed to keep SpaceX's massive Starship cool during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, areThe Elon Musk-led company has attempted to launch three fully-stacked Starship prototypes into orbit so far. The first two attempts, inin a post last week after stumbling upon a perfectly preserved heat shield tile on a beach six miles north of SpaceX's testing facilities in Boca Chica, Texas.
SpaceX "thanked me for the information and said I could ship the pieces to them or keep them," the user told"I chose to keep them," they added. "Since then, I’ve made 11 trips to Mexico and drove thousands of miles on the beaches," he told the newspaper. According to the report, he's found 120 whole tiles and hundreds of pieces.SpaceX opted to cover one side of its behemoth Starship in charcoal-black, hexagonal tiles to help it survive the blistering trip through the Earth's atmosphere while traveling at 25 times the speed of sound.