[somenameforme]

I wonder what the odds are that some deep sea salvage group is moving to collect that this very instant (or being contracted for such). If Starship lives up to even a fraction of its potential, that [not so] little guy is going to have some serious historicity.

[dotnet00]

They had a plane flying in the area shortly after landing, probably to drop some marker for a group to come around and recover the black box. I think they've stopped bothering with preserving the test articles though, in the process of test driven development, they're going to have so many "historic" test articles, that it's kind of pointless.

[BurningFrog]

I'd be really surprised if they didn't have a GPS in the ship.

Which should mean they know where it "landed".

[dotnet00]

They still would've been in position to put down a marker, since they had to be prepared for that before they knew they'd be able to maintain telemetry down to the water, and if they're already in position, it doesn't hurt to place the marker anyway.

[a_paddy]

And the coordinates of where it "landed" are less important when it's drifting in the middle of the ocean.

[BurningFrog]

According to ChatGPT, a Starship has 1000 cubic meters internal volume, and weighs 120 tons empty, which my manual math says is a density of 0.12, which means it should easily float in the ocean.

[thelittleone]

Not sure if I heard the commentary correctly, but I believe they said the video uplink was via starlink. If so, they should have the precise location.

[dotancohen]

The Russians and Chinese would probably love to examine those Raptors.

[Ringz]

Not only the Russians and Chinese… Other countries and maybe some US companies too.

[hindsightbias]

What makes you think it sank? If the hull is intact it might be floating. Given the flap damage, it's probably leaking though.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

It looked like the booster exploded when it submerged after soft splashdown. There was some fire and the stream cut off. Maybe that's what happened to the ship too.

[inglor_cz]

IIRC the intent was to sink it using explosives (Flight Termination System) in case it stays afloat after landing.

[stoobs]

I think they had a tug go out to drag it to deeper water and make sure it sunk - there was some ship (ocean) commentry I saw in a couple of places showing the tracking data.