The battle to save a section of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket from the clutches of the Indian Ocean appeared to have been lost.
For days, teams on boats on the other side of the world had tracked down and grabbed the 171-foot tall section of the rocket that flies in space, known as the upper-stage, following a July 24 flight test. But hope of recovering the spacecraft had dwindled so much that even Elon Musk, the tech mogul who founded SpaceX in 2002, took to social media to declare that the odds of success were “not looking good.”
Silence followed for more than 10 days after the discouraging Aug. 7 update. Then, on Tuesday, Aug. 18, SpaceX revealed that it had accomplished what it thought rough seas had made impossible: the Starship upper-stage had been towed to shore near Australia.
The feat is the latest victory to come of the 407-feet-tall Starship’s most recent flight test, which saw the world’s largest rocket launch from South Texas and fly halfway around the world before the upper section landed intact in the ocean. Never before had an upper-stage survived a flight test, and now SpaceX has nabbed one that it can return to its Texas headquarters to analyze further.
Here’s everything to know about SpaceX’s saga to recover the upper-stage of its Starship rocket following a mission it refers to as “flight 13.”
Starship upper-stage lands intact after flight 13 from Texas
The section of the Starship rocket that SpaceX recovered was used in a launch that got off the ground July 24 from the company’s Starbase headquarters in Texas about 180 miles south of Corpus Christi in Texas. The mission was the 13th flight test of Starship since 2023.
While the 236-foot first-stage booster known as Super Heavy made a water landing off the Gulf coast of Texas after providing the initial burst of thrust at liftoff, the upper-stage ontinued on into suborbital space. Along the way, the vehicle hit a number of SpaceX’s objectives for it, including the short-lived deployment of operational Starlink satellites that demised as intended in Earth’s atmosphere.
One hour after launch, the upper-stage, designated Ship 40, then made a controlled landing following a dangerous reentry into Earth’s atmosphere and landed upright in the Indian Ocean. Because the landing was so gentle, Ship 40 was able to slowly tip over and float in the ocean without exploding or sinking, as prior prototypes have done.
SpaceX set out to recover Starship section in Indian Ocean
SpaceX soon dispatched teams on an ambitious mission to locate and haul Ship 40 to shore
But while boats attached a line to Ship 40 and began towing it through the sea, SpaceX said in an Aug. 7 post on social media site X that teams faced “challenging conditions and increasingly rough seas.” The dire situation prompted Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, to admit in a comment that “recovery is not looking good right now.”
SpaceX tows Starship to Christmas Island near Australia
Teams, though, apparently did not give up, because SpaceX shared in a post Aug. 18 that the mission ended in success.
Following what SpaceX said was 24 days at sea, the upper-stage was hauled off the coast of Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean about 840 nautical miles northwest of the mainland.
“Starship Flight 13 is being recovered from sea,” Musk said in a post sharing SpaceX’s update.
Up next, SpaceX said it plans to return Ship 40 to Starbase in Texas. While prolonged exposure to saltwater has likely rendered the vehicle unusable on another flight, SpaceX has expressed interest in studying it to make improvements to future iterations.
Wildlife photographer captures striking images of recovery
Photographer Chris Bray managed to capture overhead photos with a drone of the Starship being hauled to shore that set the internet abuzz.
“There had been rumors it was on its way, and then this morning I heard it was here, so I grabbed my wildlife telephoto lens and drone and dashed down to the coast to see it,” Bray wrote to FLORIDA TODAY, part of the USA TODAY Network. “My first reaction as I glimpsed it through the trees was ‘OMG that thing is HUGE!’”
Bray, who runs small-group wildlife photo tours around the world, said he had never seen anything like it in his career. Bray said now he’s curious to see just how SpaceX goes about recovering this giant milestone spacecraft.
What is SpaceX’s Starship megarocket?
SpaceX has been testing Starship since April 2023 on a series of flights from Starbase as it develops the massive rocket for future spaceflight missions, including interplanetary travel.
Musk’s vision has long been for Starship to be the vehicle that takes humans to Mars, where they can establish a self-sustaining colony. While Musk has indicated that SpaceX will focus on building a lunar city first, the company has already announced a human-led expedition to Mars’ orbit – though it has not set a target date.
SpaceX is also under contract with NASA to develop a lunar lander configuration of its Starship, known as the Human Landing System, to ferry astronauts to the moon under the U.S. space agency’s Artemis program.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com
Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: How SpaceX recovered an intact Starship after flight 13 from Texas
Reporting by Eric Lagatta and Brooke Edwards, USA TODAY NETWORK / Corpus Christi Caller Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Eric Lagatta and Brooke Edwards, USA TODAY NETWORK | USA TODAY Network
