Technology
SpaceX recovers intact Starship from Indian Ocean after July test flight
The vehicle is being shipped back to Texas in a multi-month transit to provide engineers with critical flight data.
The short version
- SpaceX successfully completed its largest salvage operation yet, recovering the Starship rocket launched on July 24.
- The vehicle survived its 13th test flight and remained floating and intact in the Indian Ocean near Christmas Island.
- Engineers plan to analyze the recovered hardware to gather data for Starship's development as NASA targets lunar landings as early as 2028.
Key facts
- SpaceX recovered its most recently launched Starship rocket from the Indian Ocean near Christmas Island roughly a month after its launch.[ABC News · Associated Press]
- The July 24 launch was the 13th test flight of a full-up Starship, which blasted off from Starbase in Texas.[ABC News · Associated Press]
- Unlike previous test flights, the rocket survived an hourlong space-skimming flight and remained floating and intact in the ocean.[ABC News · Associated Press]
- The transit to return the recovered Starship to Texas is expected to take several months.[ABC News · Associated Press]
- NASA is relying on Starship, alongside Jeff Bezos' Blue Moon lander, to return astronauts to the moon's surface as early as 2028.[ABC News · Associated Press]