SpaceX to reuse oil rigs for launch pads



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SpaceX plans to use two deep-water oil rigs as offshore floating space ports that the company will likely use for the Starship rockets it is developing.

CNBC’s Michael Sheetz reports, citing public documents, that the now bankrupt offshore rig operator Valaris sold two rigs, 8500 and 8501, for $ 3.5 million each. The deal was reached in July last year, and Valaris – the world’s largest operator of offshore drilling rigs – filed for Chapter 11 protection soon after.

According to the CNBC report, the buyer of the platforms was a limited liability company named Lone Star Mineral Development, registered in the name of SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen.

Now the platforms have been renamed Deimos and Phobos, possibly after two moons from Mars, and have been moved to the Port of Brownsville in Texas, near 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 said the company plans to build launch sites. floating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Starship is a top priority for SpaceX. The huge spacecraft is expected to carry cargo and up to 100 passengers on missions to the Moon and Mars.

Elon musk tweeted in June 2020, SpaceX was “building super-heavy class floating spaceports for Mars, the moon, and hypersonic travel around the Earth.” The tweet came in response to another, which said SpaceX was recruiting “a team of engineers and technicians to design and build an operational offshore rocket launch facility.”

An offshore launch site is the one that makes the most sense, according to reports. The Starship spacecraft is very large and it has a large explosion hazard zone, noted Thomas Burghardt of NASA Space Flight in an Oil Platform News report. This, added to the noise issues, he explained, would make a land-based launch site a poor choice, hence the decision to launch a toe spacecraft from an offshore location.

By Irina Slav for OilUSD

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