Elon Musk Says Starship Flight 13 Is Being Recovered From the Sea Nearly 24 Days After Landing in the Indian Ocean

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) CEO Elon Musk confirmed on Tuesday that the commercial spaceflight company was recovering the Starship rocket following its 13th flight test in late July.

24 Days At Sea

In a post on the social media platform X, SpaceX said that the “SpaceX Recovery team” had guided the Starship rocket “to a location just off the coast of Christmas Island” in the Indian Ocean after the rocket spent roughly 24 days at sea.

“A team of SpaceX engineers is on their way to conduct additional analysis on the vehicle in calmer waters before attempting to return it to Starbase,” the company said. Quoting the post, Musk backed the efforts, confirming that “Starship Flight 13 is being recovered from sea”

Musk had earlier claimed that SpaceX may not be able to recover the rocket following its landing. In a post on X on August 7, Musk said that ship recovery was “not looking good,” but added that SpaceX took “close-up photos of critical regions of the heat shield and engines for future upgrades.”

SpaceX Launches Two Rockets Minutes Apart

The news coincides with another rocket-shaped boost for SpaceX as the company recently conducted two Falcon 9 rocket launches just 38 minutes apart from one another, which set a new record for the shortest time between orbital flights. The launches took place from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Meanwhile, Harvard Management Co. disclosed a $2.2 billion stake in SpaceX, with the university holding 12.94 million shares of SpaceX Class A common stock at the end of the second quarter of 2026, according to 13F filings, making SpaceX Harvard’s largest disclosed public holding.

According to Benzinga Edge Rankings, SpaceX provides a favorable price trend in the Short, Medium and Long term.

Price Action: SpaceX Shares were down 1.18% to $141.65 during overnight trading on Tuesday.

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