SpaceX

SpaceX is converting previously bought oil rigs into launch pads for it’s starship rockets

2 deepwater oil rigs by Valaris, numbered 8500 and 8501 were sold for $3.5 million each as the company applied for bankruptcy.

Elon Musk,the billionaire who’s working on going to Mars, and even start colonising the planet, has decided to buy a slew of oil rigs in order to convert them into rocket landing sites. Two rigs in the port of Brownsville were lying idle as the owner, Valaris had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The pair of rigs was purchased in July 2020 by limited liability corporation Lone Star Mineral Development, according to public records. Lone Star Mineral Development was incorporated in June 2020 and registered in the name of SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen.

Elon Musk is converting old rigs into spaceports for missions to Mars, Moon, and around the earth

The oil rigs are in the Port of Brownsville, which is close by to SpaceX’s Starship development facility in Boca Chica, Texas. After it was acquired by SpaceX, they were renamed Deimos and Phobos after the moons on Mars.

It is said that those oil rigs will be used as spaceports for SpaceX’s Starship which is the rocket that will send cargo as well as people for future missions to the moon, to Mars, and beyond.

Spacex Starship

The starship is SpaceX’s top priority, with SpaceX flying its most recent prototype, the SN8 to its highest altitude yet during a test flight in December. The Starship prototype launched to about 40,000 feet and completed several development objectives, despite exploding on impact when it attempted to land.

SpaceX has long been hinting at future floating launch and landing sites for their Starship launch system. The super heavy lift launch vehicle will have a large blast danger area and pose noise concerns if launched frequently near populated areas. Therefore, sea launch platforms will play a key role in the launch cadence SpaceX plans to reach with Starship, including on-orbit refuelling flights for deep space missions and transportation from one place to another on Earth.

Musk also said that the offshore spaceports won’t exactly hug the coastline.

“We need to be far enough away so as not to bother heavily populated areas. The launch & landing are not subtle. But you could get within a few miles of the spaceport in a boat,” he said in another tweet that same day.

The Port of Brownsville is home to a handful of oil drilling rigs, as drilling operations are regularly conducted in the Gulf of Mexico. One rig in port was photographed by NASASpaceflight before and after a sign with the name Deimos was added in recent months.

Photographs of the same rig showed that it was previously named ENSCO 8500, owned and operated by offshore drilling company Ensco Rowan PLC.

Ensco Rowan merged and became Valaris PLC in 2019. The rig, then named Valaris 8500, was sold with another rig named Valaris 8501 to an undisclosed buyer in August 2020 when Valaris filed for bankruptcy. The two rigs sold for $3.5 million each, and as it turns out, the undisclosed buyer was SpaceX.

Twitter user Jack Beyer had said that he saw the rigs being named Deimos and Phobos and believed those rigs were bought by SpaceX

Elon Musk in a reply said that he confirms Jack’s findings that the oil rigs have been purchased by SpaceX.

SpaceX has been publicly hiring for offshore operations positions since last year, when the company posted that it was building “a team of engineers and technicians to design and build an operational offshore rocket launch facility.”

Additionally, as of midday Tuesday there were two temporary offshore positions currently available in Brownsville listed on the company’s career website. One of those two positions is for an electrician and asks that candidates be able to “install enhancements and major upgrades to offshore vessel electrical systems.”

Kiran Fernandes

Kiran is your friendly neighbourhood tech enthusiast who's passionate about all kinds of tech, goes crazy over 4G and 5G networks, and has recently sparked an interest in sci-fi and cosmology.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button

Adblock Detected

Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker