Floating launch vehicle operations platform

A floating launch vehicle operations platform is a marine vessel used for launch or landing operations of an orbital launch vehicle by a launch service provider: putting satellites into orbit around Earth or another celestial body, or recovering first-stage boosters from orbital-class flights by making a propulsive landing on the platform.

In the early decades of spaceflight technology, all orbital launch vehicle operations were exclusively from land, and all booster stages were expended after a single use for nearly 60 years after the first orbital spaceflight, Sputnik 1. After the late 1990s and into the 2010s, new marine options for launch were built. Landing of orbital-class boosters began to be accomplished in 2015. More platforms, both for launch and landing, are currently in construction or planned.

Suborbital rockets and ballistic missiles had been launched from marine platforms earlier than the 1990s, but are not the topic of this article.

Platforms to date

Both floating launch platform and floating landing platforms have been placed into use by orbital launch service providers as of 2020. Additionally, at least two new rocket landing platforms and one new launch platform are under construction as of 2020.

There are currently at least five instances of marine launch or landing platforms:

In addition to the historical and current platforms, other entities have considered utilizing a floating landing platform.

  • Rocket Lab announced in March 2021 that they are building their new medium-lift launch vehicle—Neutron—to land the first stage booster on an ocean landing platform.[9] However, the company later announced in a December 2021 update that the rocket would instead return to its launch site, removing the need for any ocean platforms.[10]
  • In June 2021, Astra was evaluating ocean launch platforms as part of their company strategy to have more than a dozen launch locations to support a daily smallsat launch cadence by 2025.[11]

History

Floating launch platforms

Orbital launch platforms were initially modified ships, but specific platforms were later produced specifically to be orbital launch vessels.

The concept was pioneered in the late 1990s by a US, Russian, Norwegian and Ukrainian commercial consortium.[12] The Chinese space agency did their first orbital launch from a ship in 2019. It was unclear if the shipboard launch was a special demonstration mission, or if China was putting a new launch service provider capability into place.[2]

Floating landing platforms

All early orbital launch vehicle stages were expended, the booster stages were destroyed when re-entering the atmosphere or on impact with the ground or ocean. After over four years of research and technology development, SpaceX first landed Falcon 9 boosters on land in 2015,[13] on a floating landing platform in 2016,[14] and has been reusing boosters routinely since 2017, with most of the recovered boosters landing on a platform at sea.

After attempts to land orbital rocket booster stages by parachute failed in the late 2000s, SpaceX began to develop reusable technology in the early 2010s, when they contracted with a Louisiana shipyard to build a floating landing platform to land their launch vehicles. The platform had an approximately 90 by 50 meters (300 ft × 160 ft) landing pad surface and was capable of precision positioning with diesel-powered azimuth thrusters[15] so the platform can hold its position for launch vehicle landing. This platform was first deployed in January 2015[16] when SpaceX attempted a controlled descent flight test to land the first stage of Falcon 9 flight 14 on a solid surface after it was used to loft a contracted payload toward Earth orbit.[17][18] The platform utilizes GPS position information to navigate and hold its precise position.[19] The rocket landing leg span is 18 m (60 ft) and must not only land within the 52 m (170 ft)-wide barge deck, but must also deal with ocean swells and GPS errors. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first displayed a photograph of the newly designated "autonomous spaceport drone ship" in November 2014. The ship is designed to hold position to within 3 meters (9.8 ft), even under storm conditions.[20]

On 8 April 2016, the first stage of the rocket that launched the Dragon C110 spacecraft ahead of CRS-8, successfully landed on the drone ship named Of Course I Still Love You, the first successful landing of a rocket booster on a floating platform.[14] By early 2018, SpaceX had two operational drone ships and had a third under construction. By September 2018, sea platform landings had become routine for the SpaceX launch vehicles, with over 23 attempted and 17 successful recoveries.[21]

As of 2018, Blue Origin is intending to make the first stage boosters of New Glenn be reusable, and recover launched boosters on the Atlantic Ocean, downrange of their Florida launch site, via a stabilized ship that is underway, acting as a moving floating landing platform. The hydrodynamically-stabilized ship is projected to increase the likelihood of successful recovery in rough seas.[22]

In October 2018, the ship was disclosed to be the LPV, built in 2004 as a roll-on/roll-off cargo ship. The LPV was undergoing refit in 2018–2019 in Pensacola, Florida.[23]

Operation

Floating platforms have the benefit of being able to receive or launch space launch vehicles out on the open ocean to keep the operation away from populated areas, for reasons of safety.[24]

Floating launch platforms can be moved substantial distances across the ocean, to be repositioned for launches.[25] I

The use of a floating launch platform allows for the rocket to be positioned more easily than with a fixed launch pad on land. For example, Sea Launch moved their platform closer to Earth's equator to gain a bit of extra momentum and gain additional performance from the rocket. The Chinese Long March 11 did something similar for its 2019 sea launch.[26]

References
  1. "SpaceX Launches Eighth Starlink Mission, Read The Instructions With East Coast Droneship Debut". NASASpaceFlight.com. 3 June 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  2. "China launches first space rocket from a sea platform". DefencePoint.com. 5 June 2019. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  3. "Ahoy, Jacklyn! Jeff Bezos names Blue Origin's rocket recovery ship after his mom". GeekWire. 29 December 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  4. "Used Ro/Ro Will Become Blue Origin's Rocket Landing Pad". The Maritime Executive. 23 October 2018. Archived from the original on 7 July 2019. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  5. Sheetz, Michael (19 January 2021). "SpaceX bought two former Valaris oil rigs to build floating launchpads for its Starship rocket". CNBC. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  6. Burghardt, Thomas (19 January 2021). "SpaceX acquires former oil rigs to serve as floating Starship spaceports". NASASpaceFlight. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  7. Mosher, Dave (16 June 2020). "Elon Musk: 'SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports' for its Starship rocket to reach the moon, Mars, and fly passengers around Earth". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 17 June 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  8. Foust, Jeff (14 February 2023). "SpaceX drops plans to convert oil rigs into launch platforms". SpaceNews. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  9. Foust, Jeff (1 March 2021). "Rocket Lab to go public through SPAC merger and develop medium-lift rocket". SpaceNews. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  10. Berger, Eric (2 December 2021). "Rocket Lab's next booster is stubby, reusable, and has a Bond-movie fairing". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
  11. NSF Live: The future of Astra with Founder and CEO Chris Kemp, NasaSpaceFlight.com, @59:23, 5 June 2021, accessed 14 June 2021.
  12. "The Sea Launch Partnership". Energia. 14 February 2001. Archived from the original on 14 February 2001.
  13. Grush, Loren (21 December 2015). "SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket after launching it to space". The Verge. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
  14. Drake, Nadia (8 April 2016). "SpaceX Rocket Makes Spectacular Landing on Drone Ship". National Geographic. Retrieved April 8, 2016. To space and back, in less than nine minutes? Hello, future.
  15. "SpaceX Announces Spaceport Barge Positioned by Thrustmaster's Thrusters". Thrustmaster. 22 November 2014. Archived from the original on 7 December 2014. Retrieved 23 November 2014.
  16. Bergin, Chris (17 December 2014). "SpaceX confirms CRS-5 launch slip to 6 January". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 18 December 2014.
  17. Foust, Jeff (25 October 2014). "Next Falcon 9 Launch Could See First-stage Platform Landing". Space News. Archived from the original on October 25, 2014. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  18. Bullis, Kevin (25 October 2014). "SpaceX Plans to Start Reusing Rockets Next Year". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  19. Dean, James (24 October 2014). "SpaceX to attempt Falcon 9 booster landing on floating platform". Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  20. Musk, Elon (22 November 2014). "Autonomous spaceport drone ship". SpaceX. Retrieved 23 November 2014.
  21. SpaceX to attempt five recoveries in less than two weeks as fleet activity ramps up, NASAspaceflight.com, 19 July 2018, accessed 2 August 2018.
  22. Burghardt, Thomas (20 September 2018). "Building on New Shepard, Blue Origin to pump a billion dollars into New Glenn readiness". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
  23. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin ship to be used for rocket landings docked at Port of Pensacola, Pensacola News Journal, 24 October 2018, accessed 4 November 2018.
  24. Wall, Mike. "SpaceX wants to build an offshore spaceport near Texas for Starship Mars rocket". Space.com. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  25. Floating Platform Of Sea Launch Project Arrives In Russia's Far East, Portnews, 26 March 2020, accessed 19 December 2020
  26. "Space: China launches first rocket from the sea". Allianz Partners. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
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