Thread by @interstellargw

Starship S31's debris have returned to Australia!

All sorts of items, ranging from tiles, COPV tanks, and other components from the Starship upper stage have been brought back to shore for further analysis 🧵

A quick disclaimer. All activity and observation here took place under all proper permits and licenses, along with discussions with involved parties. Do NOT attempt operations such as this without these authorizations. All it takes is one person to ruin operations for everyone.

Offshore support vessel "LIMITLESS" and offshore tug "BHAGWAN RENEGADE" were present at the landing site of Starship during Flight 6. Following splashdown of the vehicle, Starship broke up into multiple sections. These two vessels followed the floating debris for over 27 hours.

Limitless arrived to port first, to Exmouth, Australia, on November 23rd. Here we can see unloading operations actively ongoing.

Among the largest debris brought back was four COPV tanks from the ship. There is potential that there was actually eight tanks unloaded, as each of these crates can contain four COPV tanks each, and one of the containers was already sealed by the time we arrived on scene.

There's also the classic piece that we all know and love -- Tiles! Multiple bags containing hundreds of heat shield tiles, presumably sampled from various areas around the ship.

Many of these tiles are in surprisingly good condition. Here is a person inspecting a chunk of tiles still held together with glue. This chunk is most likely from the nosecone tip or the forward static aerocover caps of Starship.

Additionally, there were these six containers. These are called steel IBC tanks, and can store a wide variety of liquids. We believe these were simply carrying extra fuel for the marine vessel.

There were also a lot of other objects unloaded that we could not identify. Some of them are featured below.

Almost all the debris we saw ended up being loaded on to these flatbed trucks. Hopefully, within a month or two, we see these crates turn up at Starbase.

These are the cores for the buoys that observe Starship's landings. Each buoy is comprised of two of these cores, and there's four buoys. Each one gets one core with a prop and an antenna (right side) and another core with cameras and a computer (left side)

Checking in on the Renegade, it returned to Onslow, Australia, on November 24th. It was not carrying anything. However, it provided multiple valuable insights into what we should expect should Starship return intact.

First, looking at the vessel, we can see this large floatation device, called a fender, on the stern section of Renegade. This would aid in floatation of a Starship vehicle while in tow.

The berth itself was completely clear, with a temporary crane stationed on site. This crane is a Tutt Bryant 275T Crawler Crane, with, you guessed it, a lifting capacity of 275 tons. More than enough to lift a Starship vehicle from the water and on to a barge.

With this, we can create a conceptual render of what we may see next flight, if the ship comes back intact. For that though, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Additionally, we have crafted a more comprehensive video version of this thread. You can watch that at the following link;