--- title: "SpaceX Spotted Scooping Pieces of Starship Out of Ocean After Impact" description: "Footage shows SpaceX crews retrieving debris belonging to the upper stage of SpaceX's enormous Starship rocket." date: "2024-12-14" modified: "2024-12-14" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-scooping-pieces-starship-ocean" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Space" - "SpaceX" - "Starship" tags: - "SpaceX" - "Starship" - "the digest" --- # SpaceX Spotted Scooping Pieces of Starship Out of Ocean After Impact ![Footage shows SpaceX crews retrieving debris belonging to the upper stage of SpaceX's enormous Starship rocket.]() *\Image: Intersellar Gateway via YouTube\* ## Breaking Things There's always something you can learn from failure. Sometimes failure looks like your rocket [blowing up after crashing into the ocean]() — but it's a learning opportunity nonetheless. In the case of SpaceX, that means retrieving the watery remains of said rocket, Starship, to determine what went wrong during the less-than-perfect performance of its latest suborbital test flight. And so SpaceX employees traveled to the waters off the western coast of Australia, where the rocket's upper stage splashed down, to collect the debris. These were the findings of SpaceX-focused content creator Interstellar Gateway, which [gathered footage]() of the crews dredging up some of the spacecraft's hardware, including heat shield tiles and various tanks. But there could be more than meets the eye. Based on Interstellar Gateway's sleuthing, the next retrieval mission could bring back the entire spacecraft in one piece. "This was the first flight we've seen a vessel rigged specifically for towing... leading us to the realization that they may be attempting to return Starship back to port," Interstellar Gateway [told *Gizmodo*](). "Upon our investigation during their port operations, we noticed all of the needed lines and rigging materials needed to pull Starship back, as well as a staging area prepped with a crane, ready to remove Starship from the water." ## Explosive Progress SpaceX stunned the world with its fifth orbital flight test of Starship in October. After reaching space, the rocket's lower stage, the Super Heavy booster, made a controlled descent down to the Earth's surface, guiding itself back to its launch tower where it was [caught midair by a pair of mechanical arms]() — an astonishingly precise feat of engineering. The rocket couldn't repeat the feat, however, during its latest test in November. Just four minutes into the flight, SpaceX had to [call off the booster catch](), forcing the rocket to make a rough splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, where it immediately exploded into flames. By contrast, the upper stage, the Starship spacecraft itself, demonstrated it could relight one of its engines in space and made a much softer, controlled splashdown in the ocean. Still, it did catch fire and fall apart after the landing, though nowhere near as dramatically as with the booster. ## Safe and Sound Besides the reusability factor, there's a huge incentive for SpaceX to recover the Starship spacecraft in one piece. "There is only so much data SpaceX can get from Starship via StarLink transmissions as it has always sank shortly after splashdown," Interstellar Gateway told *Giz*. "Similar to the valuable data being used from the first caught and intact booster, there are tons of structural and out of view faults that can be found from an intact Starship returning to land." With any luck, that'll soon be the case. The next Starship launch is [reportedly slated for no earlier than January 11]() next year — so keep an eye out. **More on Starship:** *[Video Shows Robot Welding SpaceX Starship]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()