Around the World in less than 90 Days

Ship 40 has defied odds and survived a normally explosive landing in the Indian Ocean for prototype suborbital starships in the block 1, 2 and 3 design phases. Ship 40 deployed Starlink V3 satellites over Indian ocean to connect to the network and test downlink capability and then survived re-entry and splashdown and to the surprise of SpaceX engineers and even Elon Musk himself when the ship tipped over there was minimal flames and no explosion and they then asked themselves what do we do now and had to determine if they wanted to scuttle at sea, recover, tow it to Australia. Their drone footage alone of an intact ship floating in the ocean would have been a gold mine of data, but imagine if they could get the ship back intact or get SpaceX engineers to the ship to inspect and to take samples especially of the heat shield in the SpaceX documentary it mentioned how it put them three months ahead on the heatshield questions by inspections done at sea.

Now the question became what resources are in the area and what resources can be procured to be able to secure the ship in a bobbing ocean and it being 9 meters in diameter and 70 meters long it no small task. The first step in securing it was getting landing resources to attempt to secure the ship. First resource involved was Go Austrailis who was on scene for the splash down and had been secured to set up, deploy and recover the glorified rafts with a starlink dish and a camera on to document the splashdown in real time and to judge the accuracy of the subsonic portion of flight. The next assets to join the recovery efforts is the Normand Ranger and Skimmer Tide who's herculean task is to try to tow Starship 40 to either Austrailia or figure out what to do and it was definitely a challenge and fighting weather and wind and figuring out how to rig up a very large and bobbing starship or maybe it should be called starboat.

Eventually they were able to slowly but surely get it towed to Christmas Island near Indonesia to await SpaceX engineers and the heavy lift vessel Forte made its way to Christmas Island to engage in transport operations. The most important thing is getting SpaceX engineers on scene to be able to remove some of the tiles and test reusability incredibly quick by flying two of those tiles on orbital Starship Flight 14 (Starlink 31-1).

The submersible heavy lift Forte then arrived on scene and after being fitted with a cradle the balasts on Forte were filled with water and then Starship 40 was floated on top of the cradle then Forte rose and it was once again on a dry surface. Then began the long journey home across the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf and then back to Starbase for its triumphant re-entry to Starbase and the to further inspections and to work on breakover procedures for future ships to be shipped to Louisiana and Florida.

On Wednesday October 7th, Forte entered the Brownsville shipping canal and docked with Ship 40 on the deck.

Then SpaceX engineers had to work on getting it off of Forte and onto dry land using some SPMT (Self-propelled Modular Transport) by practicing moving it around the deck then on Saturday October 10th it was outfitted with an American flag over its sea level engines, whether for pomp and circumstance or ITAR it will never be known, and rolled back to the production facility horizontally to the ring-yard where SpaceX used it breakover jig to slowly work on the processes of lifting it upright. On Monday October 12th, it was lifted onto a ship stand then overnight lifted to a work station within Megabay 2 to start the process of deep level analysis which may or may not include cutting it apart for scrapping after they see what effects suborbital reentry had on the ship. While us as observers may want them to keep the ship in tact for posterity sake, the data from analysis is far superior to having the ship stand as a testament to the effort to recover and return ship 40 to its launch site.