SpaceX Recovers Starship Ship 40 From Indian Ocean After Historic Test Flight

VoM News Desk | August 29, 2026 | 01:48 PM IST | Breaking News, World | Follow on Google News

SpaceX Recovers Starship Ship 40 From Indian Ocean After Historic Test Flight

HOUSTON, August 29 [VoM News]: SpaceX has recovered its Starship Ship 40 from the Indian Ocean after the spacecraft completed a test flight and survived re-entry, marking the company’s largest recovery operation for the vehicle so far.

The spacecraft was retrieved from waters near Christmas Island and is now being transported to SpaceX’s base in Texas. The journey is expected to take several months.

SpaceX said engineers spent several days examining Ship 40 at sea and collecting heat-shield samples. The company said the work provided important information about how the spacecraft performed during re-entry, which will help guide improvements to future vehicles.

Ship 40 launched from Starbase, Texas, on July 24 on the 13th test flight of a full Starship system. Unlike earlier flights, the spacecraft remained intact after completing its roughly hour-long spaceflight and returned to the ocean.

SpaceX said the recovery team faced difficult conditions while securing the vehicle and bringing it ashore.

Starship is central to Elon Musk’s plans for future missions to the Moon and Mars. NASA is also relying on Starship as part of its Artemis programme to support future lunar landings.

The recovery gives SpaceX engineers direct access to a flown vehicle, allowing them to study its hardware and re-entry performance before subsequent Starship tests.

VoM News Desk

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