SpaceX plans to use two deepwater oil rigs as floating offshore space ports that the company is likely to use for the Starship rockets it is developing.
CNBC’s Michael Sheetz reports, citing public documents, that now-bankrupt offshore oil rig operator Valaris has sold two oil rigs, 8,500 and 8501, for $ 3.5 million each. The deal was finalized in July last year, and Valaris – the world’s largest offshore oil rigs operator – filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection shortly thereafter.
The purchaser of the rigs, according to the CNBC report, was a limited liability company called Lone Star Mineral Development, registered in the name of SpaceX’s chief financial officer, Bret Johnsen.
Now, the platforms have been renamed Deimos and Phobos, possibly after two moons from Mars, and moved to Brownsville Harbor, Texas, close to where SpaceX is building its Starship rockets.
TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington notes that SpaceX has so far tested its Starship prototypes on land, at a site in Boca Chica, but recalls that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had said the company had plans to build floating launch sites in the Gulf of Mexico.
Starship is a top priority for SpaceX. The massive spacecraft is slated to carry cargo and up to 100 passengers on missions to the Moon and Mars.
Elon Musk tweeted in June 2020 that SpaceX built “floating supermassive spaceports for Mars, the moon and hypersonic travel around the Earth.” The tweet came in response to another, stating that SpaceX “hired a team of engineers and technicians to design and build an operational offshore rocket launch facility.”
According to reports, an offshore launch site makes the most sense. The spaceship is very large and has a large explosion risk area, Thomas Burghardt of NASA Space Flight noted in a report on the news about the oil rig. This, coupled with noise pollution, he explained, would make an onshore launch site a poor choice, hence the decision to launch a spacecraft from an offshore location.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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