This isn't what the commentators are referring to when they talk about "the flip".
Rockets traditionally have some type of separation mechanism to separate stage 1 and stage 2. This is usually some type of pyro charge or an actual pneumatic pusher. SpaceX wants to avoid this complexity with Starship and instead "throw" off stage 2 (Starship) by doing a flip with the booster. I don't believe it's been done before for stage separation, but this is also how they deploy Starlink satellites. [0]
Obviously, something went wrong in stage separation today so Booster+Starship just continually flipped. We don't know exactly what the true flip will look like.
ohitsdom|2 years ago
Rockets traditionally have some type of separation mechanism to separate stage 1 and stage 2. This is usually some type of pyro charge or an actual pneumatic pusher. SpaceX wants to avoid this complexity with Starship and instead "throw" off stage 2 (Starship) by doing a flip with the booster. I don't believe it's been done before for stage separation, but this is also how they deploy Starlink satellites. [0]
Obviously, something went wrong in stage separation today so Booster+Starship just continually flipped. We don't know exactly what the true flip will look like.
[0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1630394434847227909?lang...
cubefox|2 years ago