SpaceX's Starship undergoes major overhaul for improved launch success.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that the company is changing the approach for separating the two stages of its Starship vehicle to increase payload performance before its next test flight. The new approach, called hot-staging, involves igniting the engines on one stage while still attached to its lower stage. Musk said that, for Starship, most of the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster would be turned off, but a few still firing, when the engines on the Starship upper stage are ignited. SpaceX also made improvements to the Raptor engines and the launch pad.