SpaceX (SPCX) launched Starship for the 13th time from its Starbase, Texas, launch site on Friday, July 24. The upper stage Starship 40 made the softest splashdown landing in the Indian Ocean.
The landing burn and engine cutoff sequence worked flawlessly, resulting in a better-than-expected soft water landing of Starship 40. Because of the smooth landing, the entire Ship 40 spacecraft remained intact.
Another interesting thing that happened after the landing was that the Starship began to float on the water. But the story of Ship 40 didn’t end here.
As of this writing (Wednesday July 29), it has been more than 100 hours since the Flight 13 Starship 40 made a soft splashdown landing, and the spacecraft is still floating on the surface of the Indian Ocean (near Australia).
SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk shared the following footage of Starship floating in the Indian Ocean. Although this is a short video clip taken by a Starlink satellite, Starship looks as epic as it was at the time of its landing.
Starship still floating in the ocean pic.twitter.com/eYm4OjDMf6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
Some Starship Facts
The object you see floating in the ocean in the pic and video above is actually a megastructure. There are two major parts of a fully integrated Starship: the lower or 1st-stage Super Heavy rocket booster and the upper or 2nd-stage Starship spacecraft.
In the Flight 13 launch test (IFT-13), SpaceX landed the Starship 40 upper stage in the Indian Ocean. It’s the latest V3 generation of the Starship; the upper stage alone stands at 52.1 meters (171 feet) tall, which can be translated to a 16-story building to understand the massive scale of the spacecraft alone (without the booster).
It’s made of steel and has around 18,000 heat-shield tiles (the side) installed on it. At the aft (bottom) section, six Raptor 3 engines are installed (3 sea-level and 3 vacuum-level, for atmosphere and space, respectively). These objects have a combined weight of around 100 tons.
Making a soft splashdown landing of such a huge object is a great achievement in aerospace technology. This also paves the path to reusability. Interestingly, most of the Starship 40, along with its engines, stayed intact during flight and after landing.
Some Crazy Thoughts: Ship 40 Recovery and Water Propulsion
Soon after the landing of Starship 40 and seeing its intact condition, a thought popped into my mind: this ship can be rescued.
Obviously, I am not the only one who thought that. However, SpaceX and Elon Musk chose to stay quiet on this matter, even after I tagged them multiple times asking if Flight 13 Starship would be rescued and brought back to the United States.
Now, days later, Elon Musk shared the above video, and Ship 40 is still floating in the ocean. I know it wouldn’t be an easy task to bring a 16-story-tall ~100-ton spacecraft from thousands of miles away to its home back to Starbase, Texas.
Update: Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX is sending a ship to the Indian Ocean to recover Starship 40.
However, it would be a historic and iconic Starship sitting at the Starbase Rocket Garden. Most probably, SpaceX is trying to capture the ship and bring it back home, but there has been no official word on it.
One more interesting thought: if there is any propellant left in the tanks, can SpaceX turn on one of the Raptor engines to show us how Starship propels on the surface of the ocean? The answer is probably NO, but if at all this happens, it would ignite much more excitement in space and Starship enthusiasts.
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Related SpaceX / Starship News
- Starship Flight 14: SpaceX performs a single-engine static fire test on Ship 41, Starbase updates (videos)
- Tesla to reportedly unveil the next-gen Roadster in August, with SpaceX thrusters of-course
- Space, Connectivity, AI: Key takeaways from Elon Musk’s SpaceX Q2 2026 Earnings Call
- SpaceX (SPCX) reported revenue growth of 92% YoY and a net loss of $541 million in Q2 2026
- SpaceX to attempt Starship catch in Flight 14, as Flight 13 Ship 40 landed precisely
- Flight 13 Starship 40 is still floating in the Indian Ocean after 100 hours of its soft landing; Elon Musk shares the latest video, more
What happened to the flight termination package. Is there a bomb just floating out there?
Most probably the prop tanks are emptied already. They should have a method to de-tank in such a scenario in the future.
I believe 13 can fly again.