Christmas Island resident spots SpaceX rocket floating in the ocean during morning commute: 'Really incredible'

 Residents on Christmas Island were shocked to find out that a huge black mass in the ocean was actually a SpaceX rocket.

David Watchorn, chair of the Christmas Island Tourism Association, told the BBC and The Guardian that he saw what looked like three large ships off the coast on his way to work on Tuesday, Aug. 18. But eventually he realized that one was not like the others.

“When you looked a bit closer, what looked a ship was a black rocket,” he told the newspaper.

“It’s really incredible to think about what it’s been through,” he added while speaking to the BBC, noting that the rocket was being towed by the two ships.

The rocket, named Ship 40, was launched from SpaceX’s Starbase headquarters in South Texas near the U.S-Mexico border on July 24, according to USA Today. It went into suborbital space and completed its mission before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and making a controlled landing in the ocean. 

Another resident told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the rocket made quite a splash among locals.

“Everyone’s just been launching boats out to have a look at this rocket, and just standing up on the cliffs wherever they can to have a look at it,” Svyatoslav Shanygin told the outlet.

“Everyone’s [social media] post just been like, rocket, rocket, rocket, rocket, rocket … the whole feed was just rockets,” he continued. “There’s been a bit of excitement around it.”

However, recovering the rocket took some time due to “challenging conditions” and “increasingly rough seas,” SpaceX shared in a post on X Friday, Aug. 7.

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The process was finally completed on Wednesday, Aug. 18, when SpaceX shared in an update on Wednesday, Aug. 18, that they’d “successfully guided Starship to a location just off the coast of Christmas Island” after 24 days at sea.

The company added that its engineers were “on their way to conduct additional analysis on the vehicle in calmer waters before attempting to return it to Starbase.”