SpaceX founder gifts Starship heat shield tile to Indian Prime Minister Modi

SpaceX Founder and CEO, Elon Musk met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and gifted him a Starship space launch vehicle’s heat shield tile.

Musk met the Indian leader on Thursday at Blair House, where Modi is staying opposite the White House. He held a business dialogue with the Indian side probably about Tesla and Starlink.

The particular gift is making headlines as it wasn’t clear in the first spot. The hexagon shape can be seen on top of a placeholder with letters. The real Ship uses a much bigger diameter than the one that the Indian prime minister received.

Some clouds cleared as a previous image of a similar gift appeared online. The tile material is scorched in high temperatures and appears to be a cutout from a larger version.

An image of a similar Starship tile gift (Source – OwenSparks_/X)

Starship’s heat shield saves the upper stage from high temperatures during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. These are made of ceramic material including a compound of high-temperature resistance and durability.

These tiles are designed for the second stage and patched in a beehive pattern on the belly side. These tiles are crucial to make Starship reusable and provide heat resistance to the vehicle on its way to the Earth or surface landing.

Over the course of the past four tests, Starship’s upper stage has completed more than two suborbital flights. Afterward, the ship re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere, a phase that lasts for minutes. Still, SpaceX has to work on good landing for the spacecraft.

This heat-shield tile gift to the Indian prime minister is also special due to the fact that Starship’s upper stage conducts a splash-down landing in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX Starship Splash Down In the Indian Ocean (Source – SpaceX)

In the meantime, SpaceX is preparing to launch Starship Flight 8 and you can check our Starship archive to know more about its testing and liftoff.