Overview
- The 52‑meter Starship upper stage made an unexpected intact splashdown after flight 13 and stayed afloat, while the Super Heavy booster suffered a partial engine‑restart failure and hit the Gulf of Mexico hard.
- SpaceX has been towing and attempting to recover the upper stage but reported that increasingly rough seas and structural loads have left the operation likely to fail, a reality Elon Musk described as “not looking good.”
- Recovery teams obtained close-up photos of heat‑shield seams and the six Raptor engines, giving direct visual evidence of how thermal tiles and engine components fared during reentry.
- Saltwater exposure and towing stress mean the afloat Ship may already be unusable for reuse and the damaged Super Heavy is unlikely to fly again, shifting engineers’ focus to data rather than hardware refurbishment.
- If recovery cannot succeed, SpaceX faces choices about sinking or abandoning the vehicle to protect sensitive technology and that decision could accelerate plans for more offshore launch and recovery infrastructure and new regulatory debates.