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[i]Some of you recently asked additional questions about Comet, the thermal protection system we created for New Glenn, and whether we'll paint it on our vehicle. We could — but have chosen not to for a variety of reasons, including adding unnecessary weight. It has been applied on our fins, forward module, strakes, tank tunnel, and the aft section, including the legs. As for the color, you tell me: Copper? Gold? Brown? Given the the thermal environment, we expect the material will change colors on our booster as we fly multiple missions. Regarding the strake you see at the top of the image, there are two of them, and each is about the size of an F-16 wing and carries 175,000 lbs of lift when our stage re-enters for landing on Jacklyn. The strake is designed to accommodate two inches of thermal "growth" during the different phases of flight. In other words, there are temperature differences during the mission of up to several hundred degrees Fahrenheit that cause the tank to shrink and the strakes to grow.[/i]
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