Starship booster looks like an ancient artefact fetched from sea. 'Like the ruins of...'

SpaceX recently retrieved the mangled remains of a Starship first-stage booster from the Gulf Of Mexico and it will literally give you the creeps. It appears like a fascinating piece of machine lost to time, or as Elon Musk put it, "Like the ruins of a futuristic, long-dead civilization."

Musk shared, along with a photo, that the Super Heavy Booster is from Starship's fourth test flight which took place in June.

While it has been only around three months since that test launch, the booster looks like it has been in the sea for ages. The rocket reached orbital velocity and both stages completed their return to Earth. The booster ended up in the Gulf of Mexico.

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The fourth test flight brought a few more plusses for Starship as the rocket survived peak heating and max aerodynamic pressure during its controlled reentry.

There were no reports of SpaceX working to retrieve the booster from the sea. So the operation came as a surprise and was kept a secret. However, a group of documentary filmmakers who specialise in shooting rocket launches, got wind of the plans, as per Universe magazine.

Also Read:Elon Musk plans to build fleet of Starships to take humans to Mars

Reports suggest that SpaceX used HOS Ridgewind, a vessel owned by Hornbeck Offshore, for the Starship booster operation.

Why has SpaceX retrieved the booster?

Meanwhile, it is not clear why has the booster been fished out considering nothing of the sort has ever been revealed before. The company is currently working to perfect Starship and experts working at SpaceX might need the booster to gather more data about the fourth flight.

SpaceX is currently preparing for test flight number five but will have to wait a little longer to launch the Starship this time due to the approval pending with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The company recently shared photos of the Starship propped and ready for liftoff. It also informed that the engineers had carried out a propellant load test and preflight checkouts.

“Starship stacked for Flight 5 and ready for launch, pending regulatory approval,” SpaceX wrote on X earlier this week.

Musk plans to send humans to Mars on Starship within the next few years. As per his current plans, five uncrewed Starship missions will travel to Mars in two years. The billionaire said that the uncrewed missions to Mars will happen in 2026 and will "test the reliability of landing intact" on the red planet.

Musk said that if everything goes well, then Starship will carry people to Mars for the first time in four years.

The launch will take place when the Earth-Mars transfer window opens, which happens approximately every 26 months. At this time, the two planets are closest to each other.

Musk wants to manufacture multiple Starships and create a fleet comprising hundreds of them to ferry a million people to the red planet.