heat shield
noun
: a barrier of ablative material to protect a space capsule from heat on its entry into an atmosphere
Examples of heat shield in a Sentence
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SpaceX's Cargo Dragon is derived from the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft, with a heat shield and propellant reserves to bring the capsule and its cargo back from the ISS for a splashdown at sea.
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Stephen Clark, ArsTechnica, 15 Sep. 2025
This Starship also incorporated several different heat shield designs to determine which worked best for reusability.
—Alex Knapp, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2025
Typically, rocket heat shields require extensive and costly refurbishment or wholesale replacement after flights.
—Ruxandra Iordache, CNBC, 27 Aug. 2025
SpaceX’s Starship rocket on Tuesday deployed its first batch of mock Starlink satellites in space and tested new heat shield tiles on its plunge through Earth’s atmosphere, clinching development milestones that had been held up by a streak of previous testing failures.
—Reuters, NBC news, 27 Aug. 2025
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Stephen Clark, ArsTechnica, 15 Sep. 2025
This Starship also incorporated several different heat shield designs to determine which worked best for reusability.
—Alex Knapp, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2025
Typically, rocket heat shields require extensive and costly refurbishment or wholesale replacement after flights.
—Ruxandra Iordache, CNBC, 27 Aug. 2025
SpaceX’s Starship rocket on Tuesday deployed its first batch of mock Starlink satellites in space and tested new heat shield tiles on its plunge through Earth’s atmosphere, clinching development milestones that had been held up by a streak of previous testing failures.
—Reuters, NBC news, 27 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for heat shield
Cite this Entry
“Heat shield.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heat%20shield. Accessed 17 Sep. 2025.
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