Firstly, the heat shield absolutely did its job during Flight 13. Secondly, it’s undeniable that Starship’s heat shield performance has improved markedly over the last several flights. On Flight 13, six of the Starlinks that Starship deployed also gathered imagery of the heat shield prior to reentry. With all of that said, when Rasky, Carmada, and Miller examined drone footage of Starship’s heat shield after the Flight 13 splashdown, their trained eyes picked up an important detail. They told Ars Technica that Starship’s heat shield design is a good “incremental” step forward from that of NASA’s Space Shuttle, but that it relies on the same fundamental solution.