The floating Starship from test flight 13 is now being towed back to shore
Images from orbit now show that the Starship from test flight 13 that surprisingly survived splashdown and has been floating in the Indian Ocean for the past few weeks appears captured by a line from one of two tugboats.
The two tugboats are from Norway, dubbed Normand Ranger and Skimmer Tide. SpaceX’s own ship, Go Australis, which filmed the splashdown using drones and has been staying with Starship as it drifted more than a hundred miles to the northwest is now heading back to Australia.
Satellite images taken Sunday and Monday by Vantor, a Colorado-based geospatial intelligence company, show the recovery attempt, with a small boat deployed next to Starship and a line attached to its nose. It’s unclear from the images if the towing has begun yet, but ship tracking data from MarineTraffic on Monday showed Skimmer Tide and Normand Ranger moving at about one knot and broadcasting that they had restricted maneuverability. Go Australis separated from the other ships and is on its way back to Australia alone.
It is not yet clear how these tugboats will recover the spacecraft or where they will bring it. The image to the right suggests at least one of these ships might have room to haul Starship out of the water and place it on board. Considering the length of the long journey back to Boca Chica or any SpaceX facility in the U.S., this might be what they hope to do.
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I think it more likely that they will either tow it to Australia slowly, or just keep control over it so that a larger vessel has time to get there and the Starship can be put on the deck. The tug boat pictured appears to have a yellow crane at its stern and Starship is already so long that it would overhang the tug’s stern even without that crane in the way.
I know that there are cargo and salvage vessels that can submerge their decks to bring oversized cargo or even other ships, onboard. That I think, would be the most likely scenario, since towing Starship all the way to Texas would take forever and the pictured tug looks too small to bring Starship aboard. Keeping Starship out at sea would also give SpaceX time to get experts deployed to what ever ship does attempt the recovery, so that the Starship isn’t damaged in the attempt.
I’m no expert, but I gotta think being submerged in all that saltwater isn’t good for the Ship’s steel exterior or the engines. I wonder if that will affect the value of any inspections SpaceX’s engineers make.
Starship is famously made out of stainless steel. It don’t rust. My guess is that they’ll tow it to the nearest port so that SpaceX engineers can magnifying-glass the heat shield and rocket motors.
The YouTube site “What’s Up With Shipping” is a valuable resource.
Starship is tiny compared to what these ships normally wrangle—like the S.S. United States.
My guess is that it is light enough to where they can hold up the engine section, letting the nose trail in that it is rounded. It and flaps a keel of sorts.
The most mind boggling feat of engineering I have ever seen was how Troll A was towed into position…the most aggravating being the parbuckling of Costa Concordia.
There are cylinder shaped platforms called spars that are Sea Dragon size if not larger and more massive.
I and Gene Meyers of Space Island Group talk often…and he told me about how blown away Mark Holderman was when a replica of an oil derrick was on display. A lot of folks in aerospace just don’t understand the scale of what the Energy Sector can fund and build.
Sea Dragon is a toy compared to Troll A, closer to Flip Ship.
Starship even more tiny.
I tell you right now, you build a wet stage Bernal Sphere type Sea Dragon and it likely works.
My biggest problem with Elon is that he thinks too small:
https://up-ship.com/blog/?p=40017
Powersats could put Energy Sector money in space…and get us away from communication satellite mindsets
The reason I think so highly of Condeeps is how it is a potential cure for many ills.
Lots of empty space…perhaps useful for the firm “Infinite Cooling” and or this:
https://hackaday.com/2026/07/31/using-the-chimney-effect-to-drop-passively-cooled-pc-temperatures/
So server farms can be at sea. Metal spars for shielding?
Beal’s rocket was to use carbon fiber..that can come from crude and filament wind machines for naval use.
The condeep is a model self-replicating machine that will eventually find its way to Titan.
She’s in trouble!
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/spacex.13774/page-262#post-932283
A potential solution…scroll down
https://www.sprayfoammagazine.com/foam-news/unsinkable-boats/3781
https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/61439/ship-sinking-prevention-device-using-foam
Mr. Zimmerman, I hope you will forgo the link limits….I want this ship saved…all the work of those men needs to be preserved.
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