Four days after Flight 13, Starship is still bobbing in the Indian Ocean — and Elon Musk is treating that as a victory lap.
On X today, Musk posted a short clip with a simple caption: “Starship still floating in the ocean.” Hours later, he added the line that matters for SPCX watchers:
“The ship landing was precise, meaning that it would have been caught by the tower arms.”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
That is not a casual flex. It is Musk signaling that Flight 13’s soft splashdown was accurate enough to support the next leap: catching the upper stage with Starbase’s tower “chopsticks.”
What Just Happened
Flight 13 (Ship 40 / Super Heavy V3) flew after earlier scrubs, deployed next-gen Starlink satellites, re-entered, flipped, relit Raptors, and soft-landed in the Indian Ocean. Days later, recovery imagery still shows the vehicle remarkably intact and afloat.
Musk also confirmed SpaceX is sending a ship to recover Starship — rare hardware that engineers can inspect after a real entry, flip, and landing burn.
Why Today’s Tweets Matter
SpaceX has already caught Super Heavy with the tower. Catching the ship is harder: hotter entry, tighter timing, higher risk over land. Musk previously said ship catches would wait for clean ocean landings.
Today’s posts close that loop:
- The vehicle survived splashdown intact
- It is still floating days later
- Musk says the landing precision would have worked for a tower catch
In other words: Flight 13 was not just a successful demo — it was a dress rehearsal for Flight 14.
Next Up: Catch the Ship
Unless mission data review finds problems, SpaceX plans to attempt a tower catch of the ship on the next flight. If it works, both stages become rapidly reusable — the core of Starship’s cost and cadence thesis.
For markets and SPCX.net readers, the narrative shifted in one X thread: from “did it survive?” to “can we catch it next time?”
Also on Musk’s Feed Today
While Starship dominated the aerospace conversation, Musk also amplified:
- “Grok now in Copilot” — Grok 4.5 is live in GitHub Copilot
- Political/cultural quote-posts (John Cleese / Rupert Lowe)
The SpaceX signal, though, is the one moving the story: a floating Ship 40 and a clear claim that the landing was catch-ready.
Bottom Line
Musk’s latest tweets turn a viral ocean video into a roadmap. Starship did not just land soft — according to Musk, it landed on the money. Recovery ship outbound. Tower catch queued for the next flight.
SPCX.net will be watching Flight 14 for the moment the ship stops being a “ship” in the ocean — and starts being caught by the tower.