Why Starship Lights Its Engines While Still Attached

3-Second Blueprint (English)

1. Cold staging shuts down the booster before separation and upper ignition, leaving a zero-thrust coast gap where gravity slows ascent.
2. Starship hot-stages by keeping select Super Heavy engines lit while firing 6 upper Raptors above a heat-shielded vented interstage.
3. Eliminating the coast gap trims ascent gravity losses, boosting Starship's payload capacity to orbit by roughly 10%.