Is SpaceX doing ocean salvage operations near Boca Chica?
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SpaceX appears to be recovering the Superheavy booster that soft landed off shore from Boca Chica during the sixth test flight in November.
On Saturday, footage, albeit from a vantage point of someone who should not have been that close to the recovery operations, showed the aft end of a Booster with most of its Raptor engines still attached, being lifted out of the water.
During that November flight mission controllers decided against attempting a chopstick recovery, and sent the booster to do a soft vertical spashdown just off the coast. The booster than fell over and was seen drifting south. It appears SpaceX has now mounted operations to recovery it, possibly in response to the complaints by Mexican officials about its rocket pieces showing up on the beaches. Company engineers likely also wish to take a look at the equipment for their own reasons.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for original source.
SpaceX appears to be recovering the Superheavy booster that soft landed off shore from Boca Chica during the sixth test flight in November.
On Saturday, footage, albeit from a vantage point of someone who should not have been that close to the recovery operations, showed the aft end of a Booster with most of its Raptor engines still attached, being lifted out of the water.
During that November flight mission controllers decided against attempting a chopstick recovery, and sent the booster to do a soft vertical spashdown just off the coast. The booster than fell over and was seen drifting south. It appears SpaceX has now mounted operations to recovery it, possibly in response to the complaints by Mexican officials about its rocket pieces showing up on the beaches. Company engineers likely also wish to take a look at the equipment for their own reasons.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
My guess is they didn’t want anyone else to salvage some of ot surreptitiously. I’m sure many countries would like to get a Raptor engine or 2 to copy and do materials science testing on to figure out the exact alloys used.
I am surprised they didn’t go out and recover it the night it fell in the ocean.
” . . . albeit from a vantage point of someone who should not have been that close to the recovery operations, . . .”
I don’t know about that. Ship tracking sites put the recovery operation about 50 nm off the Mexican coast, with a 0.25 nm (~1500 feet) clearance advisory. A stabilized long lens can get that kind of lo-res shot. A little surprised there aren’t a swarm of drones in the vicinity. Or, maybe there are; it’s international waters.
Blair Ivey: That sanctimonious commentary was from a NASASpaceFlight.com commentator. It certainly looked to me as if that was a long lens shot taken well away from the salvage operations.
I guess NASASpaceFlight.com was simply resentful someone else was scooping them on the story.
Off topic. With Sunday the 56th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, Pope Leo makes a call to Buzz Aldrin. Interesting piece in American Thinker. Cheers –
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/07/pope_leo_calls_up_and_congratulates_buzz_aldrin_on_the_54th_anniversary_of_the_moon_landing.html
That was nice.
Understandable, since there has always been a schism over which is more sacred-Earth of Sky?
What is Gaia compared to Jove?