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I am wondering how the whole non-tank upper portion of Starship maintains its integrity during high-stress situations (ascent, reentry, belly-flop). The tanks are pressurized, but I assume that the nose cone is not and therefore it seems that it would not be stiff enough to withstand flight and maneuvering in the atmosphere on its own.

I am thinking about some support struts, webs etc.

This question assumes that the fairing is made in a similar fashion as the tanks, i.e. just plates and rings of steel as I haven't seen any pictures suggesting otherwise.

For illustration: enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Is there any evidence that Starship uses fuel pressure (balloon tanks presumably) for structural integrity? If not then what's holding the nose together is what's holding the rest of the vehicle together. $\endgroup$
    – user21103
    Sep 30, 2020 at 11:03
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    $\begingroup$ Quoting Elon Musk: "...~6 bar is needed for orbital flight" and "A given tank pressure is needed to feed the engine turbopumps & pressure-stabilize/relieve compression load on the cylinder walls" twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1215719463913345024 $\endgroup$ Sep 30, 2020 at 19:49

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First of all, Starship is not required to maintain pressure in the tanks to keep upright. For a long duration mission all that will actually be fueled is the header tanks, to keep boil off to a minimum, everything I have seen says it should maintain structure without pressure, unlike previous Stainless Steel spacecraft.

We don't have great insight to what the inside of the fairing will be, mostly because we haven't actually seen a useable one. But perhaps the best look comes from this concept drawing of LUVOIR inside of a Starship fairing.

enter image description here

Similar structures are on the inside as show up in a normal fairing.

Bottom line, it should remain intact even without internal pressure. There will be some structure no doubt in place to hold it together, but overall there doesn't seem to be anything special required for it to stay together.

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  • $\begingroup$ I mentioned in my question that I am asking about "maneuvering in the atmosphere" specifically. I too can imagine that the ship/fairing do not need extra support in space or standing empty on the ground. $\endgroup$ Sep 30, 2020 at 19:43
  • $\begingroup$ Well, if the main tank is empty when landing, it will also be empty when maneuvering. It doesn't seem like there is anything more for the fairing than for the rest of the tank. $\endgroup$
    – PearsonArtPhoto
    Sep 30, 2020 at 20:18
  • $\begingroup$ No it won't. There is the belly flop maneuver but most importantly there is reentry at orbital speed and obviously ascent and max Q. The fairing cannot be just made of thin wobbly plates welded to the tank IMO so I was interested if anyone knew some more. See also comment above: space.stackexchange.com/questions/46783/… $\endgroup$ Sep 30, 2020 at 21:46

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