The upper section of SpaceX's massive Starship rocket has officially made it home to South Texas after its recovery on the other side of the world following a flight test.
Against all odds, the second stage of the world's largest rocket, this one designated Ship 40, was hauled into the Port of Brownsville in Texas less than two months after SpaceX teams recovered it near Australia. The upper-stage was used in Starship's 13th flight test in July, which began with a launch at SpaceX's Starbase headquarters in Cameron County.
Recovery and transporting the 171-foot-tall spacecraft from such a far distance marked a major feat for SpaceX, which is developing Starship for missions to the moon and Mars. Standing at more than 400 feet tall when integrated
with the lower-stage booster – known as Super Heavy – Starship is also going to be used to deploy SpaceX's Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit.
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.
While the 236-foot Super Heavy booster made a water landing off the Gulf coast of Texas after providing the initial burst of thrust at liftoff, the upper-stage continued on into suborbital space before making a water landing in the Indian Ocean. In a milestone for SpaceX, Ship 40 splashed down upright and intact before tipping over and floating in the sea without exploding or sinking, as prior prototypes have done.
SpaceX recovers Starship's 'Ship 40' in Indian Ocean
The soft landing presented an opportunity for SpaceX to recover the first-ever flight-tested Starship upper-stage.
For weeks, the ambitious venture appeared dire and doomed for failure thanks to rough seas and other challenging conditions. But on Aug. 18, SpaceX announced that the upper-stage had been hauled to shore at Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean about 840 nautical miles northwest of the mainland.
The destination served as a mere rest stop before SpaceX then began the journey to return Ship 40 to Starbase in Texas.
Recovered Starship upper-stage returns to Texas port in Brownsville
Ship 40 was recorded early Oct. 7 pulling into the Port of Brownsville just west of Starbase.
Space enthusiasts and photographers in the Brownsville area flocked to the port that morning to catch sight of the returning upper-stage of Starship.
The recovered ship is far from simply a trophy for SpaceX. 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.
What SpaceX plans to do with Ship 40 in the long-term, though, remains to be seen.
Starship reaches orbit on flight 14 from Texas
The arrival comes about a week after Starship reached orbit Sept. 28 for the first time since SpaceX began testing the rocket in April 2023. The milestone marks a major achievement for SpaceX, which tech mogul Elon Musk founded in 2002 with the expressed objective of developing spacecraft capable of taking humans to destinations like the moon and Mars.
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: SpaceX brings recovered Starship home to Texas after ocean saga
