{"id":860486,"date":"2026-08-19T06:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860486\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T06:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:04:15","slug":"spacex-recovers-rocket-off-christmas-island-after-24-days-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/860486\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX recovers rocket off Christmas Island after 24 days at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX has successfully retrieved a rocket that splashed down in the Indian Ocean off Christmas Island, the company owned by Elon Musk has said.<\/p>\n

The 52-metre-long space debris has caused a stir in the remote territory, with locals lining up along the rugged coastline to catch a glimpse of the rocket as it was towed in.<\/p>\n

The rocket, named Ship 40, was launched on July 24 from Texas. After its mission, it landed near Christmas Island, some 1,500 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia.<\/p>\n

A recovery operation coordinated by the federal government and SpaceX was initially hampered by rough seas, the company said.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Rough seas delayed the retrieval operation. (Supplied: SpaceX)<\/p>\n

But after some 24 days at sea, SpaceX confirmed late yesterday the rocket had been retrieved.<\/p>\n

“The SpaceX Recovery team successfully guided Starship to a location just off the coast of Christmas Island,” the company said on X.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The rocket has been towed to shallower waters where it will be examined by SpaceX engineers. (Supplied: SpaceX)<\/p>\n

Christmas Island Tourism Association chair David Watchorn marvelled at the size of the rocket as it came into view.<\/p>\n

“It was just there, huge,” he said.More space junk to come<\/p>\n

The recovery of the rocket off Christmas Island comes after a four-tonne abandoned upper stage of a SpaceX rocket<\/a> crashed into the moon two weeks ago, thrusting the issue of space junk into the spotlight.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Two large ships towed the space rocket to shore as part of a retrieval operation. (Instagram: @chrisbrayphotography)<\/p>\n

Space archaeologist and Flinders University associate professor Alice Gorman said Australians should expect to see a lot more space junk over the next few years, given the surge in launches.<\/p>\n

Objects launched into space have skyrocketed in recent years, with 4,510 launches in 2025, compared to 586 in 2019, according to United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs data.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

“A study that was done a few years ago showed that as the number of launches increased, we specifically in the southern hemisphere are likely to get more space junk than the northern hemisphere is,” Associate Professor Gorman said.<\/p>\n

There have been several space junk incidents in Australia over the last few years.<\/p>\n

Most recently, several metallic “space balls” were discovered on a north Queensland beach in July<\/a>, with the Australian Space Agency confirming they were likely from a space launch vessel.<\/p>\n

In October last year, space junk believed to be from a Chinese rocket was found near a mine site in Newman<\/a> in WA’s north.<\/p>\n

University of Southern Queensland’s space program director associate professor Matt Richardson says SpaceX has been a leader in reusable space technology.<\/p>\n

Professor Richardson said the main challenge was safely recovering space equipment that would typically fall into the ocean and sink to the bottom or disintegrate.<\/p>\n

“They [Space X] intentionally brought this rocket down in the Indian Ocean just to prove that they could do it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They [Space X] did a propulsive landing \u2026 basically it came to a complete stop just above the water and then it dropped in.<\/p>\n

“This was very much deliberate, trying to sort of control the landing and simulate what an actual landing would look like.”<\/p>\n

Professor Richardson said developments in reusable space technology were on the rise due to the cost benefits involved.<\/p>\n

“I think any company or any sector that’s not using reusable rockets will fall behind because this is very expensive technology, rough order of magnitude, $100 million to build a rocket,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX has successfully retrieved a rocket that splashed down in the Indian Ocean off Christmas Island, the company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,59686,3120,86,22924,128,285,98193,22925,5437,430398,45],"class_list":["post-860486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-christmas-island","tag-elon-musk","tag-perth-news","tag-rocket","tag-science","tag-space","tag-space-junk","tag-spacecraft","tag-spacex","tag-spacex-rocket","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}