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Starship Ship 40 Retrieved, SpaceX IPO Billions & Solar Eclipse Aug 12
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Three recovery ships are pulling a floating, intact Starship from the Indian Ocean — the softest splashdown yet — while SpaceX's IPO triggers a record $7.95B flood into space startups. Plus Crew-13's September launch date and a total solar eclipse crossing Europe on August 12.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Three recovery ships are now circling a floating Starship in the Indian Ocean, and that image tells you almost everything about where this program stands right now. Ship 40 came down on July twenty-fourth in what SpaceX called its softest splashdown yet.
Here's what matters most about this flight. The heat shield held well enough that SpaceX is now seriously evaluating a dry-land catch attempt for Flight fourteen.
The recovery operation isn't the only thing worth watching in the broader SpaceX story. The company's June IPO, which valued it at eighty-five point seven billion dollars, appears to have triggered a measurable shift in private capital.
Shifting to human spaceflight, NASA has set September twelfth as the target for the Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station. The crew includes NASA astronauts Watkins and Delaney, and the research manifest focuses on stem cell work related to heart disease and Parkinson's treatments in microgravity.
One more item worth flagging. A total solar eclipse crosses Greenland, Iceland, and northern Spain on August twelfth, with partial visibility across most of Europe and North America.
The two signals worth tracking from here are straightforward. First, whether Ship 40's heat shield survives inspection well enough to support a refly attempt.
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