(ORDO NEWS) — Two and a half years ago, SpaceX purchased a pair of semi-submersible oil rigs to turn them into floating spaceports, the first of its kind built and operated in the United States.
But it didn’t work out: Elon Musk’s company changed plans again and temporarily refuses offshore launch pads. The rigs have already been sold to an unnamed owner, who is likely to be scrapped.
According to the SpaceNews portal, information about the future of floating spaceports was partially learned by fans of the company who follow its activities, and partially the data was provided by SpaceX vice president Gwynne Shotwell.
Both semi-submersible platforms have been sold, their further fate is not yet known. The official reason why the company got rid of massive equipment is that it will not work to use them as spaceports.
At least in the form in which SpaceX engineers imagine it. Now, as the vice president noted, it is important to focus on getting Starship, for which floating spaceports were planned, to start flying from existing sites.
Users of the NASASpaceFlight Internet forum found in the open documentation of the port of Pascagoula (Mississippi) a mention of the terms of stay of both platforms.
One is to depart on February 20, the other on March 12. Presumably, they will be scrapped, but the prospects for each may vary – different companies are responsible for transportation.
Recall that in July 2020, SpaceX (more precisely, its “daughter” Lone Star Mineral Development LLC ) bought two semi-submersible oil drilling platforms ENSCO 8500 and 8501 from a service company close to bankruptcy Valaris plc.
In honor of the natural satellites of Mars, they were named “Phobos” and “Deimos”, and by the beginning of 2021 they were towed to the ports of Galveston and Brownsville, respectively.
Then, work began on the removal of drilling equipment and all structures unnecessary for the floating spaceport from the deck.
It was originally planned that either Phobos or Deimos would be able to partially function as a spaceport by the end of 2021.
This did not happen, apparently, against the backdrop of various engineering and bureaucratic difficulties with the testing of the Starship.
In February 2022, Musk said that within a year, a service tower would be installed on one of the platforms, similar to the one being built at the SpaceX site in Boca Chica, Texas. However, this did not happen either.
According to Shotwell, the company is not giving up on the idea of launching Starship from offshore spaceports.
There will be so many launch sites for this reusable space system in the future that the existing ground ones simply will not be enough. But when SpaceX will create them is not specified.
As far as one can judge, in the process of developing Starship and the launch infrastructure for it, the concept was partially changed, and the capabilities of the ENSCO 8500 and 8501 semi-submersible drilling platforms are simply not enough.
This is not to say that SpaceX got nothing at all from this deal. At a minimum, the company has “attached” drawworks from the platforms to the Starship service towers in Boca Chica and the Kennedy Space Center.
Such equipment, even used equipment, costs many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What else from the inventory of drilling rigs the resourceful engineers of the company have adapted to their tasks – outsiders have not yet noticed.
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