Exactly Why SpaceX Sold Its Starship Oil Rigs
It had been a long time since we heard anything regarding SpaceX’s two oil rigs before the news came out that they were no longer part of the plan. Originally bought and intended to go through a refit for future Starship launches, months ago, it was revealed that they had both been sold. This came as a shock to some as only a few years ago the rigs were bought with ambitious future plans.
In reality, SpaceX decided that they already had enough on their plate with Starship and wanted to get the vehicle off the ground first before such a big project. Combine this with work at both Boca Chica and the Cape, and the company decided these two sites would provide plenty of future launch opportunities for Starship.
While it would have been exciting to see these ocean launch platforms in action, there is still hope for the future. Here I will go more in-depth into exactly why the two rigs were sold, what the original plan was, what to expect in the near future, and more.
SpaceX Oil Rigs
Starting in July 2020, Lone Star Mineral Development LLC, a subsidiary of SpaceX, bought two semi-submersible drilling rigs from Valaris plc for $3.5 million each. At the time of being purchased, the two rigs were practically identical and were soon renamed Phobos and Deimos after the two moons of Mars.
After being purchased in early 2021, Phobos was moved from the Port of Galveston to Pascagoula, Mississippi to begin refit of the rig for Starship operations by removal of the oil rig equipment, a planned six-month project. Between then and the middle of 2021, the rig had been cleared of the bulk of the old equipment on its deck. Images of the two rigs side by side highlight the significant amount of demolition work that had been completed on this rig. At a similar time, work also started to begin on Deimos.
While the two rigs were making fast progress, they began to slow down significantly toward the start of 2022. Specifically, around early last year is when progress practically came to a halt. For around a whole year both of the oil rigs were sitting in the Port of Pascagoula in the early stage of launch platform development. Phobos was the farthest ahead with a lot of its main equipment removed while Deimos didn’t have too much work done. Either way, both rigs still had quite a long way to go. In order for them to be fully operational they would have had to be cleared of practically everything on the platform. From there, SpaceX would have needed to construct some massive launch towers, propellant tanks, and other large launch infrastructure to facilitate Starship missions. The idea being that once complete, they could move to different locations around the world and operate as a launch and landing pad for the rocket. In order to get there, Starships would fly out to sea and land on the platform.
Eventually, in February of this year, after the rigs had been dormant for over a year, we got an official update. In this case, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told reporters after a presentation at the Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Space Transportation Conference on Feb. 8 that the company had sold the rigs after concluding they were not suited to serving as launch platforms. She was quoted saying, “We bought them. We sold them. They were not the right platform. We really need to fly this vehicle to understand it, to get to know this machine, and then we’ll figure out how we’re going to launch it.”
Despite the rigs collecting dust for a long period of time, this news was still surprising to some considering the initial excitement. Originally, Musk tweeted in response to a SpaceX oil rig render, “Ocean spaceport Deimos is under construction for launch next year”. Based on all this information, it seems like SpaceX got a bit ahead of itself with the platforms in 2021. In terms of financials, the rigs were hardly an investment relative to daily SpaceX operations. They were practically bought for pennies on the dollar and it wasn’t worth paying for storage anymore. All this being said, this might not be the end of SpaceX sea launch platforms.
Future Launch Options
Just because SpaceX got rid of the oil rigs does not mean the company has abandoned future sea launch opportunities. In early 2022, Elon provided a small update that still sums up SpaceX’s plans even today. Here he was quoted saying, “Starbase, I think, it’s more suited to become our advanced R&D location, so it’s where we would try out new designs and new versions of the rocket, and I think Cape Kennedy would be our main operational launch site. Then, over time, I think we’re going to have floating spaceports like ocean spaceports, we’ve got these two converted oil rigs that are going to be turned into orbital launch sites, and they can be moved around the world.”
While the rigs are gone, Gwynne Shotwell made one final comment after revealing that the platforms had been sold. Here she pointed out, “We have designed Starship to be as much like aircraft operations as we possibly can get it. We want to talk about dozens of launches a day, if not hundreds of launches a day.” “We’ll have many pads” to support that high launch rate. “I think we’ll have a lot of sea-based platforms as well. We have to see how this ship goes” she said.
This quote makes it clear that future ocean launch platforms are still within SpaceX’s sights, however, they will likely use a different platform than oil rigs, and at a different time. Right now is the busiest SpaceX has ever been after the recent first launch attempt of a full Starship launch vehicle. With somewhat of a destructive engine ignition, the company is working on repairs to the Boca Chica launch site, and are continuing to build up the Cape launch site.
In the future, as highlighted by Elon, Boca Chica, and Starbase will be the testing grounds and initial development area for Starship. We have already seen it used in this exact manner as the company has gone from Starhopper to a full Starship. Once the Cape site is up and running, that’s when things are meant to change regarding launch operations. By then, Starship is expected to be reliable and have a decent launch history of successful missions. When both sites can handle launches, SpaceX will attempt to increase production and launch as many Starship rockets as possible. It’s likely that once they have nearly reached the limit of regulations and scheduling at both sites, work will begin on ocean platforms to offer additional launch opportunities and flight profiles.
While very ambitious, SpaceX has been planning a similar system for many years now. For example, years ago the company also released information on possible Earth-to-Earth Starship operations. If the company decided to pursue this idea in the future, some sort of water platform could be the landing and launch site they need. Even original animations from the company show Starship taking off and landing on platforms off the coast of cities. This would present its own unique challenges but either way, the goal stays the same.
It’s important to point out that with Starship being the most powerful launch vehicle in the world, launch and landing operations are not so easy. The recent launch attempt and damage to Stage 0 is a perfect example. Just the exhaust alone was enough to tear up the special heat-resistant Fondag concrete and precede to shoot it hundreds of meters in every direction. This among other reasons makes a launch and landing site on land a complex endeavor, and one at sea even more challenging. It also makes sense for SpaceX to first figure out how to properly deal with and control the Super Heavy exhaust on land before moving to an ocean platform.
The first stage, or booster, has a gross liftoff mass of over 3 million kg and uses sub-cooled liquid methane and liquid oxygen (CH4/LOX) propellants. Starship will be capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable. Looking elsewhere in the space industry, there are a few examples of launches from the sea. Sea Launch was a multinational Norway, Russia, Ukraine, and United States —spacecraft launch company founded in 1995 that provided orbital launch services from 1999 to 2014. The company used a mobile maritime launch platform for equatorial launches of commercial payloads on specialized Zenit-3SL rockets from a former mobile/floating oil drilling rig. By 2014, it had assembled and launched thirty-two rockets, with an additional three failures and one partial failure.
Sea Launch rockets were assembled in Long Beach, California. The typical assembly was done on board the Assembly and Command Ship (the payload is first tested, fueled, and encapsulated in the nearby Payload Processing Facility). The rocket was then transferred to a horizontal hangar on the self-propelled launch platform. On the downside, the few anomalies that did happen were detrimental as you can imagine. In order for consistent sea launch to be reasonable for any rocket and especially Starship, the system has to be extremely reliable with very little chance for failure. Something SpaceX will need to think about for future Starship operations.
Conclusion
SpaceX revealed that they had sold the two oil rigs earlier this year in February. While it’s sad to see them go, the company has an already full plate with work on Starship and its two existing land launch sites. This being said, in the future its possible we see work on a new type of sea platform for the rocket. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.