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SpaceX rapidly turns around drone ship for sixth launch this month
SpaceX has rapidly turned around one of its two East Coast ‘autonomous spaceport drone ships’ and sent the vessel back to sea to support the sixth and final Falcon 9 launch planned this month.
SpaceX began the month with the successful launch of Transporter-4 – its fourth dedicated smallsat rideshare mission – on April 1st. Axiom-1 – the first all-private astronaut launch to the International Space Station – followed on April 8th. On the West Coast, another Falcon 9 rocket launched SpaceX’s second National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) spy satellite mission in two months on April 17th. Most recently, Falcon 9 booster B1060 tied SpaceX’s current 12-flight reusability record with the successful launch of a batch of Starlink satellites at 1:51 pm EDT on April 21st.
Drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) was tasked with supporting Falcon 9 booster recovery for Transporter-4 and Starlink 4-14. Now, less than a day after returning to Port Canaveral with booster B1060, the ship has been towed back to sea to support another Starlink launch and landing.
Due to almost two weeks of launch delays caused by Dragon recovery challenges, drone ship A Shortfall Of Gravitas (ASOG) – the second of two East Coast drone ships – has been stuck at sea while waiting to support NASA and SpaceX’s upcoming Crew-4 astronaut launch. To preserve plans for a late-April Starlink mission, SpaceX’s recovery team has needed to move about as fast as they ever have to allow JRTI to take ASOG’s place.
Following Starlink 4-14’s April 21st launch and landing, drone ship JRTI sailed into Port Canaveral around 2am EDT, April 24th. Within minutes of arriving at its usual berth, a dockside crane had swung over and begun installing a lifting cap on top of booster B1060. Less than four hours later, the booster was lifted off of JRTI’s deck and moved onto dry land, freeing up the space it occupied for any necessary inspections or repairs. The quick booster removal also gave SpaceX time to drive the drone ship’s robotic ‘Octagrabber’ recovery robot into a garage on its deck.
Just after 8pm EDT, less than 16 hours after JRTI reached its berth, support ship Bob towed the converted barge back out to sea. If Starlink 4-16 launches on time on April 29th, Just Read The Instructions will narrowly beat a three-year-old drone ship turnaround record (8d 6h) set by Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) in early 2019; recovering Falcon 9 booster B1062 just 8 days, 3 hours, and 42 minutes after Falcon 9 B1060 – and despite traveling ~1950 km instead of ~1850 km.
Ultimately, that distance is the main reason the current record has survived for so long. Short of building or modifying a new kind of recovery ship with a different type of hull, a flat-bottomed barge – towed or self-propelled – will never be able to traverse hundreds of miles of open ocean at high speeds.
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Aside from breaking a potential drone ship turnaround record, Next Spaceflight reports that Starlink 4-16 will also almost certainly beat SpaceX’s current Falcon 9 booster turnaround record. Falcon 9 booster B1062 last launched Axiom-1 at 11:17 am EDT on April 8th. A 5:33 pm EDT, April 29th launch would translate to a turnaround time of 21 days and 6 hours, beating the current record of 27 days and 4 hours – set by B1060 in early 2021 – by more than a quarter.
If Crew-4 launches roughly on time, Starlink 4-14 will be SpaceX’s sixth launch in four weeks and 17th launch of 2022. If the company can sustain that pace over the remaining two-thirds of the year, it could feasibly launch more than 51 times in 2022.
Elon Musk shed two new bits of detail on Starship following its 13th test launch, which was an overwhelming success.
SpaceX launched Starship for the 13th time last Friday after two delays: one on Monday when several Raptor engines did not ignite, and another on Thursday due to unfavorable weather conditions in Starbase, Texas.
The launch was overwhelmingly successful. SpaceX was able to complete a necessary test of the heat shield tiles by increasing the acceleration of Starship from launch throughout the flight; 20 Starlink v3 satellites were released with no issue; the Super Heavy Booster landed safely in the Gulf of America, Ship successfully reignited engines while in space; and it also splashed down without incident in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Nevertheless, more details are coming out about Starship, and Musk is doing the talking.
Starship Will Be Retrieved in the Ocean
Musk revealed on Tuesday night that Starship would be recovered by a ship in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX routinely tries to recover Starship after splashdown in an effort to find out more about the flight by examining the spacecraft afterward.
We’re sending a ship out to recover Starship https://t.co/fUqUZTITO9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2026
This helps engineers find out more about why things might have happened, allows them to examine any potential damage or anomalies that might have occurred, and increases the chances of an even more successful flight next time thanks to the additional information recovered.
Ship Could Have Been Caught by Tower Arms, Musk claims
Musk has already indicated that SpaceX will plan to attempt a catch of Starship with the 14th test flight. While this would be a major accomplishment, it would be an expected next step, considering the fact that the Super Heavy Booster has already been caught by the chopsticks on numerous occasions.
The ship landing was precise, meaning that it would have been caught by the tower arms https://t.co/6nbNrRfX9P
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
A ship catch would be a great indication of where SpaceX stands in terms of reusability and launch cadence. A successful catch with relatively no incidents would be a good sign that SpaceX is nearing a more frequent launch of Starship, but also that the reusability of the massive rocket would be something many would expect in the near future.
It is a necessity to make life multiplanetary.
Elon Musk has updated his timeline for when humans will walk on Mars and for when ships will simply get there.
The objective of getting to Mars has been one of Musk’s biggest goals since becoming a serial entrepreneur and realizing that time on Earth is limited. Musk has said several times he hopes to die on Mars, and not by impact.
Musk now believes that people will be on Mars in “roughly 5 to 7 years.” He said that a Mars lander will get there “a few years sooner.”
People on Mars in roughly 5 to 7 years.
Mars lander a few years sooner.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
The response from Musk comes after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that SpaceX’s biggest priority is the Moon and not Mars. Because of this, Isaacman conceded that he believes nuclear power and propulsion investments will provide “potentially the pathway with the fewest miracles required to put four people on Mars in the next 10 to 15 years.”
Of course, this is what NASA can do through taxpayer funding and nuclear investments, he added.
Musk’s grand ambitions are much more optimistic than most, and it is certainly a double-edged sword. This is not the first time timelines for Mars have been somewhat lofty, especially to those normal thinkers like you and me, not super geniuses like Musk.
In fact, the SpaceX and Tesla frontman has said on at least a dozen occasions that we could be on Mars in the coming years. Musk said 2020 would be the big year as early as 2009. In 2020, he was “highly confident” of a landing in 2026, and had even said 2024 in a best-case scenario.
The point is, the range has varied, and it’s anyone’s guess when we’ll get there. This latest adjustment to the timeline is typical of Musk, and while the Moon has seemingly taken priority over Mars, it is still worth mentioning that the ultimate goal is to make life multiplanetary, and it starts potentially with the Red Planet.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
Elon Musk sheds two new bits of detail on Starship after 13th test launch
Elon Musk updates the SpaceX timeline for Mars
