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SpaceX brings recovered Starship home to Texas after ocean saga
Corpus Christi Caller-Times • • science
Key Points:
- SpaceX successfully recovered the upper stage of its Starship rocket, Ship 40, after its 13th flight test, with the vehicle landing softly in the Indian Ocean near Australia before being transported back to South Texas.
- The 171-foot-tall upper-stage was hauled into the Port of Brownsville less than two months after recovery, marking a significant achievement in SpaceX’s efforts to develop Starship for lunar and Mars missions.
- Despite prolonged exposure to saltwater likely rendering Ship 40 unusable for future flights, SpaceX plans to study the recovered vehicle to improve future Starship designs.
- This recovery milestone followed SpaceX’s 14th flight test in September, when Starship successfully reached orbit for the first time, advancing Elon Musk’s vision of human space exploration to the moon and Mars.
- SpaceX is also developing a lunar lander version of Starship under NASA’s Artemis program and aims to eventually support human expeditions to Mars, though no target date has been set.
