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Musk shares Starship hot-staging footage
Elon Musk shared footage of Starship’s hot staging, showing its upper-stage engines ignite before separation from the Super Heavy booster.
Image: iXBT
Elon Musk has published video of Starship’s hot-staging maneuver, one of the most visually striking moments from the rocket’s latest launch. The footage was recorded during the 13th Starship test flight, which took place on July 24, 2026.
The sequence shows the engines on Starship’s upper stage igniting while the vehicle is still partially attached to its Super Heavy booster. Once those engines are running, Starship uses its own thrust to pull away from the first stage.
How Starship’s hot staging works
The technique differs from a conventional staging sequence, in which the second stage’s engines start only after the stages have completely separated. By overlapping engine ignition and separation, Starship begins accelerating again with almost no pause. SpaceX says this improves flight efficiency and reduces the loss of speed during staging.
Musk also commented on the outcome of the July 24 test. According to him, Starship’s upper stage made such an accurate controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean that, if the test had required it, the vehicle could have been caught by the launch tower’s mechanical “arms” instead of landing in the water.
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“The upper stage made such an accurate controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean that it could have been caught by the mechanical 'arms' of the launch tower.”
Before Musk shared the video, SpaceX had provided details about the first Starlink V3 satellites delivered to orbit by Starship. The source does not provide additional technical data about the hot-staging sequence or a separate release schedule for the video.
Frontier Editor
Dan is our resident futurist, covering electric mobility, space exploration, and the smart home. He's interested in atoms just as much as bits. Whether it's a new battery chemistry, a reusable rocket, or a protocol that finally makes IoT devices talk to each other, Dan breaks down the engineering that pushes humanity forward.
via iXBT
