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After it conducted the first Starship test launch in April, SpaceX plans to make several changes to the rocket. These will build on the firm's experience with the first launch, as while Starship did successfully launch, some of its engines failed during flight and the first and second stages of the rocket failed to separate. To prevent this from happening, the Starship's second stage will fire its engines before separating to have an added kick at stage separation. Now, a YouTube graphic creator has made a near life like render of the event, which you can see before the next Starship test flight slated to take place sometime later this year.

All Starship Second Stage Engines Fire Up In Illustration Of Hot Staging In Flight Test 2

So far, all signs point to a second Starship test in at least two months as SpaceX races to upgrade both the launch pad and the rocket. As part of the series of tests before the launch, the firm tested the upper stage Starship rocket last month as it briefly fired its six engines as part of a hot fire test. This run was successful, and since then, SpaceX has started to build the launch pad's cooling system after repairing it from the damage caused by the first test.

The big mistake made by SpaceX at the April launch was trying to fly Starship without a cooling system for the pad. Now, wise from its errors, the firm has started to move massive steel plates to the launch site. These are part of a water cooling system and have channels through which water will dissipate the heat from the world's largest rocket before it can damage the pad's concrete.

For the rocket, one of the many changes that SpaceX is making is switching to hot staging for stage separation. In a rocket launch, stage separation is when the rocket's first stage separates and the second continues the rest of the journey.

SpaceX's Starship rocket tries to separate its first and second stages during its test flight in April. Image: SpaceX

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket uses a pusher to separate the two rockets, with the first stage engines shutting down at the time of stage separation. In contrast, for the new Starship plans, some first stage engines will continue firing as separation occurs when the second stage's engines also light up.

These details were shared by the company's chief Mr. Elon Musk, who shared in a Twitter space:

So we made a sort of late breaking change, that's really quite significant, to the way that stage separation works. Which is to use a hot staging, what's called hot staging where we light the engines of the upper stage or ship while the first stage or booster stage engines are still on. So we shut down most of the engines on the booster, leaving just a few running. And then at the same time, start the engines on the ship, or upper stage, which results in kind of blasting the booster stage so you've got to protect the top of the boost stage from getting incinerated by the upper stage engines.

To protect the first stage, it will feature vents to divert the flames away from the top of the first stage. Unlike other rocket companies, SpaceX plans to reuse the first stage by making it land, and its plans also envision a rapid reuse of the first stage.

An animation of the hot fire was posted on YouTube by the animator Hazegrayart. It covers Starship from three angles, with closeups that are unlikely in an actual launch. The first stage's hot gas thrusters that reorient it for a boost back burn are also visible, and the video is dubbed with audio from previous SpaceX launches.

You can take a look at it below: