Improvement every step! This is great!

Love these days

I definitely saw stuff flying when Super Heavy ignited engines, but not nearly as much as last time.

Mathguy64 said:

---

Well that was fun. Now the feds need to let them do actual rapid testing.

---

Hopefully no plovers were injured/scared.

Had my 19 month old in my lap counting down from 10 doing his happy dance.

Got dusty in here.

Good to see American greatness again.

I think they blew it up so they wouldn't hurt any whales

will25u said:

---

I definitely saw stuff flying when Super Heavy ignited engines, but not nearly as much as last time.

---

Everyday Astronaut just streamed a camera from the pad that was able to see everyone else's cameras and tripods. They're all standing. Looked like some rocks and gravel kicked up or washed up. But it's hard to say how much was what...

Remind me not to watch the SpaceX Youtube channels again. At the 40 second hold they switched to a cryptocurrency spiel and I completely missed the liftoff

Nice photo of hot staging.

It did the spicy thing: hot staging.

Ship 25 ignites all six Raptor engines to separate from Booster 9.

📸 - @NASASpaceflight

📺 - https://t.co/t5NUyeIBK1 pic.twitter.com/QaLw6fEOlC

— Max Evans (@_mgde_) November 18, 2023

That was amazing. Starship leaving Earth with what looks like a mile long focused exhaust plume look like something out of a science fiction movie. What a time to be alive.

That engine cutoff tho...

I LOVE this view of the Raptors shutting down in segments!! 🔥 #SpaceX #Starship@DJSnM @Erdayastronaut pic.twitter.com/UaNdMMUfAx

— Debapratim (@debapratim_) November 18, 2023

Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting second integrated flight test of Starship!

Starship successfully lifted off under the power of all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster and made it through stage separation pic.twitter.com/JnCvLAJXPi

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 18, 2023

Straight sci-fi!

Congrats to the SpaceX team and kudos to the thread contributors here that keep us always up to date.

I was finally able to get my near 14yo to pay attention this morning and I think I may now have him hooked.

That was simply awesome, impressive.

double aught said:

---

Straight sci-fi!

---

The RUD of the booster really did seem like a certain scene from Star Wars to me. I laughed.

Starship booster RUD! Awesome fireworks 💥 😍 pic.twitter.com/iBwpUwfhFy

— Tesla Pinoy 🇵🇭 (@Tesla_Pinoy) November 18, 2023

I was a bit thrown when the hot staged with all 6 engines on Ship. I didn't expect them to light the mvac set, just the inner 3 Raptors, throttled down until there was separation. And then given the altitude they would swap over to the mvacs.

Many of the 1st stage engines didn't relight after separation. They may need to relight them while the ship is in the same orientation and THEN rotate.

I wonder if the the 2nd stage raptors did damage to the first stage causing it to blow up later. They may need to make the gap between the stages wider and have some flame diversion thing within.

People underneath the trajectory rn: pic.twitter.com/uyYQZX1MH5

— Adhito (@alpha_adhito) November 18, 2023

Why did they blow the booster?

FTAG 2000 said:

---

Why did they blow the booster?

---

The booster made the decision.

nortex97 said:

---

double aught said:

---

Straight sci-fi!

---

The RUD of the booster really did seem like a certain scene from Star Wars to me. I laughed.

Starship booster RUD! Awesome fireworks 💥 😍 pic.twitter.com/iBwpUwfhFy

— Tesla Pinoy 🇵🇭 (@Tesla_Pinoy) November 18, 2023

---

You're all clear kid! Now let's blow this thing and go home!

nortex97 said:

---

double aught said:

---

Straight sci-fi!

---

The RUD of the booster really did seem like a certain scene from Star Wars to me. I laughed.

Starship booster RUD! Awesome fireworks 💥 😍 pic.twitter.com/iBwpUwfhFy

— Tesla Pinoy 🇵🇭 (@Tesla_Pinoy) November 18, 2023

---

Did it get outside of the range safety cone?

Or were there other issues that caused it?

Mathguy64 said:

---

I was a bit thrown when the hot staged with all 6 engines on Ship. I didn't expect them to light the mvac set, just the inner 3 Raptors, throttled down until there was separation. And then given the altitude they would swap over to the mvacs.

---

I think there is some speculation they really wanted to get separation ASAP this time, as there wasn't a need to recover the booster anyway, so to a certain extent that was planned as a 'throw away' moment just to see if they could get to orbit.

That every raptor fired up on both stages is pretty incredible. The other thing may be that they didn't want to risk only one or two lighting this time on stage 2, causing problems with separation. I'm gonna guess they have 'massaged' some of the algorithms the computers/pumps running the engines are using, to make sure they don't cut off/out too cautiously, for this stage of development anyway.

aTmAg said:

---

Many of the 1st stage engines didn't relight after separation. They may need to relight them while the ship is in the same orientation and THEN rotate.

I wonder if the the 2nd stage raptors did damage to the first stage causing it to blow up later. They may need to make the gap between the stages wider and have some flame diversion thing within.

---

The 20 outer engines on the 1st stage/booster don't gimbal and don't relight. It's very light for the 'return' leg without the upper stage or much fuel left, so they don't use those.

TexAgs91 said:

---

I took some drone footage of the launch

I haven't seen any videos yet that capture the clarity of the launch diamonds at lift off. My son and I saw them so clear, but it doesn't come across in video. You can see the shock waves though in this video.

---

I refuse to believe this is real until I can see it with my own two eyeballs. So amazing

nortex97 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Many of the 1st stage engines didn't relight after separation. They may need to relight them while the ship is in the same orientation and THEN rotate.

I wonder if the the 2nd stage raptors did damage to the first stage causing it to blow up later. They may need to make the gap between the stages wider and have some flame diversion thing within.

---

The 20 outer engines on the 1st stage/booster don't gimbal and don't relight. It's very light for the 'return' leg without the upper stage or much fuel left, so they don't use those.

---

Yeah, I meant several of the inner engines didn't relight. You can see it on the engine display thingy.

Could have sworn they planned to only use the inner three that can fully gimbal after separation.

JobSecurity said:

---

TexAgs91 said:

---

I took some drone footage of the launch

I haven't seen any videos yet that capture the clarity of the launch diamonds at lift off. My son and I saw them so clear, but it doesn't come across in video. You can see the shock waves though in this video.

---

I refuse to believe this is real until I can see it with my own two eyeballs. So amazing

---

Tracking camera views of hot-staging separation pic.twitter.com/wcCidOh5K0

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 18, 2023