Starship Survives 24 Days at Sea
The Starship upper stage, Ship 40, has become the first in history to survive an ocean splashdown intact, and SpaceX has successfully towed it to calmer waters for inspection after nearly a month.
The Starship upper stage, Ship 40, has become the first in history to survive an ocean splashdown intact, and SpaceX has successfully towed it to calmer waters for inspection after nearly a month.
SpaceX has announced that its recovery team has successfully towed the Starship spacecraft, specifically the upper stage known as Ship 40, to a location just off the coast of Christmas Island. According to the company's post on X, the journey through the Indian Ocean took approximately 24 days, and the spacecraft is now anchored in calmer waters awaiting detailed inspection.
Ship 40 performed the first successful soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24, 2026, following a flight from SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas. Unlike previous flights, where upper stages broke apart or exploded after tipping over in the water, this one remained intact. This even surprised the engineers themselves, who had expected the vehicle to end in a fiery disintegration, as Ars Technica reports.
Flight 13 was the second flight for the Version 3 (V3) design of SpaceX's Starship rocket. V3 debuted on Flight 12 in May 2026, but on that occasion, the Super Heavy booster fell into the Gulf of Mexico due to engine issues instead of making a soft landing. The upper stage from that flight, Ship 39, performed a braking maneuver over the Indian Ocean but exploded after tipping over in the water.
Ship 40 thus became the first upper stage to fly to space and return in one piece. SpaceX now has a unique opportunity to study the vehicle up close, which is crucial for further refining aerodynamics, hydraulics, heat shield tile efficiency, and overall design. The spacecraft stands 171 feet (52 meters) tall.
On August 7, SpaceX posted on X that the recovery team was facing "challenging conditions and worsening seas," and at one point, it was not expected that they would be able to safely tow Ship 40 to shore. Despite this, on August 18, the team managed to bring the vehicle into calm waters near Christmas Island, an Australian territory located about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) northwest of the town of Broome.
"A team of SpaceX engineers is on their way to conduct additional analysis on the vehicle in calmer waters before attempting to return it to Starbase," SpaceX said in its August 18 post.
Christmas Island is known for its approximately 40 million red land crabs that swarm the island during migration, one of the most spectacular natural phenomena in the world.
Starship is designed to be the most powerful rocket in the world and the first capable of full reusability. NASA has contracted SpaceX to build a version of Starship for landing astronauts on the Moon as part of the Artemis IV mission in 2028, as well as a compatible V3 Starship for a docking rehearsal with the Orion spacecraft in Earth orbit during the Artemis III mission next year.
SpaceX is already preparing Ship 41 and its Super Heavy booster for Flight 14. During that flight, the company plans not only to deliver the upper stage to orbit but also to return it to Starbase using the "chopstick" arms of the Mechazilla launch tower. This would be a major step toward full rocket reusability. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced during the company's first earnings call this month that Flight 14 is planned to launch before the end of August.
