Starship Flight 2

Hot-staging — igniting the second stage's engines while it is still attached to the booster, the exhaust pushing the two apart — had never been attempted on a vehicle of Starship's scale.

On 18 November 2023, the second integrated Starship lifted from a rebuilt Boca Chica pad, now ringed by a water-cooled steel flame deflector that survived the morning launch with minimal post-flight work. All thirty-three Raptor engines on Booster 9 fired through ascent. Hot-staging worked. The booster then began its flip and boostback burn, and at T+3:21 several engines shut down to filter blockage in the liquid-oxygen feed lines; one engine failed energetically and the booster exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.

Ship 25 climbed for nearly five more minutes, reaching 148 kilometres of altitude and a velocity of 24,000 kilometres per hour, before a leak in the aft section ignited during a planned propellant vent and the flight termination system destroyed the vehicle.