Saturday, August 8, 2026

SpaceX likely to lose Starship Flight 13 upper stage at sea

SpaceX

Elon Musk said on August 7 that recovering Starship Flight 13's upper stage from the Indian Ocean is not looking good, after recovery crews spent days battling rough seas following the ship's intact splashdown near Western Australia on July 24. Musk said the recovery effort still yielded close-up photos of the heat shield and engines that let him call the heat-shield problem solved, and SpaceX is targeting Flight 14 for late August in an attempt to reach operational orbit for the first time while carrying production Starlink satellites.