Elon Musk and SpaceX in talks to land and recover Starship rockets off Australian coast

SpaceX is in talks with US and Australian officials to land and recover one of its Starship rockets off Australia’s coast, a possible first step toward a bigger presence for Elon Musk’s company in the region as the two countries bolster security ties, according to three people familiar with the plans.

Since a Starship rocket made a controlled splashdown for the first time in June in the Indian Ocean, SpaceX has been eager to expand its testing campaign. Successful landings and recovery of the boosters afterwards are important elements of the speedy development of the giant and reusable rocket designed to launch satellites to orbit and land astronauts on the moon.

The plan would be to launch Starship from a SpaceX facility in Texas, land it in the sea off Australia’s coast and recover it on Australian territory. Getting permission to do so would require loosening US export controls on sophisticated space technologies bound for Australia, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

President Joe Biden’s administration already has sought to ease similar restrictions within the AUKUS security alliance, a grouping of the United States, Australia and Britain aimed at countering China.

SpaceX, the US Space Force and the Australian Space Agency did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Towing Starship, after it has landed in the ocean or on a barge, to a nearby port on Australia’s western or northern coasts would be ideal, though more specific plans and locations are still being discussed, the sources said.

The conversations underscore the US determination to help Australia build up its military as a deterrent to an increasingly assertive China in the region.

The proposed SpaceX arrangement would put more trust in a close American ally that for years has sought to expand its space dce program, strengthen civil and military space ties with the United States and stimulate its own space industrial base.

Discussions in recent weeks between SpaceX executives and US and Australian officials have focused on regulatory hurdles in bringing a recovered Starship booster ashore in a foreign country, the sources said. Because the talks are ongoing, test landings for any Starship landing off Australia remained unclear.

The sources said the proposed test-landings likely would be the first phase of a larger future Australian presence for SpaceX that could include launching from a facility on the continent or landing a Starship booster on the ground instead of the ocean, though discussions on those possibilities are in the early stages.

In developing its partially reusable Falcon 9 about a decade ago, SpaceX also made ocean-based test landings before attempting touchdowns on land and atop barges at sea. Falcon 9 is now SpaceX’s workhorse rocket, and its first-stage booster has made hundreds of routine landings from space.

Starship is a 120m two-stage rocket, designed to be fully reusable. It represents SpaceX’s next-generation rocket system, meant to loft large batches of satellites into space, land NASA astronauts on the lunar surface and potentially ferry military cargo around the world in roughly 90 minutes.