As with almost every other project Elon Musk is involved in, his SpaceX is taking a new route with its rocket launches. Several media reported on Tuesday that the space exploration company plans to launch rockets from a pair of oil platforms recently acquired from Valaris, the once powerful offshore drilling contractor that declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy last August.
The pair, now called Deimos and Phobos (apparently after the two moons of Mars), will be used as a launch pad and for other purposes for the exploration company’s planned spacecraft, a two-stage vehicle currently being tested.
Last June, several weeks before the platforms were bought for $ 3.5 million each by a SpaceX affiliate, Musk tweeted that “SpaceX is building super heavyweight floating spaceports for Mars, the moon and hypersonic travel around the Earth. “
Image source: Getty Images.
Musk often provides few details in his tweets, so it is not clear what kind of installations the platforms can be equipped with, outside of the launch platforms.
The Starship will be a huge rocket that will transport cargo and passengers into space if the company’s ambitions are realized.
Both platforms are in the port of Brownsville, Texas, near the Starship development facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
The latest unmanned starship prototype was launched in December, with the usual interest that accompanies almost everything that surrounds Musk. It was a launch of good / bad news: while the prototype reached a new height for Starships at about 40,000 feet and seemed to fulfill several of its goals, it exploded on impact when it attempted a landing.
The space race of private companies is increasingly interesting. On Sunday, Virgin Orbit – a sister company of SpaceX-like Virgin Galactic Holdings (NYSE: SPCE) – jumped his LauncherOne rocket into orbit. The spacecraft placed 10 satellites during its flight.