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More info on why that's necessary here: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/17878/why-does-the...

Edit: "that" = one flip; not the many we saw today.



This isn't what the commentators are referring to when they talk about "the flip".

Rockets traditionally have some type of separation mechanism to separate stage 1 and stage 2. This is usually some type of pyro charge or an actual pneumatic pusher. SpaceX wants to avoid this complexity with Starship and instead "throw" off stage 2 (Starship) by doing a flip with the booster. I don't believe it's been done before for stage separation, but this is also how they deploy Starlink satellites. [0]

Obviously, something went wrong in stage separation today so Booster+Starship just continually flipped. We don't know exactly what the true flip will look like.

[0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1630394434847227909?lang...


A flip for separation sounds like it would waste valuable thrust / fuel. Interesting that they think it's worth it.




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