Starship from last week’s launch still afloat in Indian Ocean
The Starship that SpaceX launched successfully on July 24, 2026 and completed a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean, where it unexpectedly remained intact and floating, has continued to drift almost a hundred miles to the northwest for now almost a week, tracked continuously by the SpaceX ship that launched the drones that filmed the landing. Elon Musk early today provided the newest footage of the floating ship yesterday, embedded below.
He also stated in an earlier tweet that “We’re sending a ship out to recover Starship.” If the company succeeds in doing this, it will be a very big coup, allowing them for the first time to make a hands-on inspection of the thermal tiles post flight. That data is priceless, as it will allow engineers to see precisely what worked and what didn’t.
Starship still floating in the ocean pic.twitter.com/eYm4OjDMf6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
This is great. A few flotation collars around the diameter of the ship and maybe a bilge pump line if there’s access and a tow line.
Weather has to hold too.
Not a sure thing but certainly something to spend a lot of money and effort on.
I don’t think floating after splashdown was part of the design criteria for Starship so there are no bilges to pump out. There might be a trivial amount of seawater in the tankage, but she looks to be floating as high now as she was when she first landed so there’s no evidence of any leakage since.
If SpaceX does take her under tow, I wonder where it plans to take her. All the way back to Brownsville/Starbase seems mighty ambitious but a tow to Australia would present its own problems.
In any case, this looks to be a continuing story with no, as yet, well-defined end.
A heavy-lift ship, perhaps? Avoids all the problems of towing. Booking time might be a problem.
Recovery crews should be on the lookout for any Klingon cruisers with cloaking devices that might try to beam Starship aboard and take it back to the 24th century.
I’m more concerned about Chinese spies moving in to conduct closer inspections.
My comment was a reference to a scene in a certain movie made about 40 years ago.
Well, that seems to pretty definitively answer my question about whether the vents could be closed after passivation – it seems they can, and were.
Now that she’s a seagoing ship rather than a spaceship, I really think she needs a name like a proper seagoing ship should have. Perhaps Elon could apply a suitable moniker from the ship names in ‘The Culture’ novels. Personally, I would name her Pauline because she has survived a lot of perils already and might well have to survive a few more before her story ends.
Here are a few possibilities from the master list of Culture ship names:
Gunboat Diplomat
Invincible
Ablation
Not Wanted On Voyage
Only Slightly Bent
Just Testing
Uninvited Guest
Problem Child
No Fixed Abode
You May Not Be The Coolest Person Here
Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill
You’ll Clean That Up Before You Leave
Oceanic Dissonance
https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft
Well, Ablation seems inappropriate. Only Slightly Bent and Just Testing both seem to fit. So, I suppose, does No Fixed Address.
There can be only one possible name: Molly Brown
When the USS Cole was bombed by a terrorist in the year 2000, the US Navy managed to get it back. If large ships can be recovered, then so can the Starship.
It will likely be the type of ship that can partially flood, maneuver into position, then refloat so that the ship can be secured to the
deck. ( I looked it up using Brave AI, and here’s a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing#Rescue )
It will take weeks to get it back, maybe in time for the next launch?
It looks so idyllic out there, like an Aussie surfer out just catching some rays in the Indian Ocean, drifting along with the tide.
Getting a tummy tan.
In the NSF Forums, TheSpaceEngineer, from X, has identified a ship of the right kind that is headed in the direction of Starship 40 and Go Australis.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=63727.msg2809944#msg2809944
Re the USS Cole… what might make financial sense for a billion-dollar warship that could be returned to service might not for what could be gained from this Starship.
As to drifting with the current, with the Starship riding so high in the water and mostly an empty shell, I suspect windage is playing a big role in where she “sails”!
SeaStarShip … she has five “arms”
There be whales…
If you’re going to move those whales, use water-filled tanks built from transparent aluminium.
Might there be a TPS solution?
Starship deploys payload, then a LOFTID type combination heat-shield/raft combination cut away and replaced every useful flight….with tile design models tested occasionally.
On the recovery subject… perhaps most Starships need no TPS.
You launch several with none, and then a Starship carries LOFTIDs to them.
They can form a ring with a big inflatable disk with chutes so they go up vertical but come down horizontal…or a Starship can carry several inflates, each going to a Starship…that could then discard it and be caught.
Landing turbojets would be perhaps less heavy than rigid tiles.
No. You’re increasing system complexity and you’d put SpaceX further behind their goals. Most of your ideas make things harder for everyone in favor of squeaking out marginal improvements, or often no improvement at all.
If he had gone full expendable early, he’d have a lot more Starlinks up there before the mid-terms
Penny wise, pound foolish. You are not thinking of the long term.
If the craft can be recovered…I hope it could be turned into a museum…. maybe this in the nose :)
https://hackaday.com/2026/07/29/behold-the-most-beautifully-ambitious-starship-simulator-yet
Let them float and recover them with an amphibious ship.
I am sure there is a large enough one for sale someplace on the planet.
Muskrat littering the ocean too, not enough for him to litter the land.
Did you worry that much during the Apollo era? They are still finding Saturn parts in the Gulf of America.
Challenges
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tWnL0lRhfQo&ra=m
Speculation
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=63727.msg2810780#msg2810780
The voyage home
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0i0hpJ0Hqj4&ra=m
More….
https://x.com/JConcilus/status/2084327623841489146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2084327623841489146%7Ctwgr%5Eb7dd2cbd1dee41373b1bbae8486e018d2a02d5c4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum.nasaspaceflight.com%2Findex.php%3Ftopic%3D63727.1000
The most massive object ever moved
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/467630-heaviest-man-made-object-moved