SpaceX has recently purchased two surplus floating offshore oil rig platforms and is beginning to refit them for Starship facility purposes. The platforms have been renamed: Demos and Phobos. Today Phobos was towed into a Gulf port in Mississippi for refit work to commence. The attached Utube video shows the tugs bringing the platform into port. There are a number of design concepts published online, as to how they will look after refit. An offshore sea launch and landing facility makes Starship operations much easier for SpaceX, as they do not have to worry about exclusion zone permissions from multiple local authorities, as would be required on land based operations. A fully loaded booster and Starship stack is going to require a 30km exclusion zone if launched from land, something that may not be possible on a regular basis from Boca Chica. The sea launch facility is further enhanced by their extensive experience landing Falcon 9 boosters on their recovery ships. These existing ships could be multipurposed as Starship transport to the platform, service vessels, etc.
https://youtu.be/BZ_qX5PFlyg
The old platform obviously needs alot of work, and much of the topside area will need to be cleared off. The tower maybe replaced with something more suitable for Starship handling, but check out the design concepts if your interested.
One thing Elon has mentioned is the ability to move sea launch platforms around, say closer to the equator for example, or for Starship sub-orbital passenger services. Imagine a sea launch platform sitting offshore near Sydney, with hydrofoil services back to Sydney airport. The possibilities afforded by sea launch are massive.
PS. There was another successful static fire of the SN9 engines, following on from a swap out earlier this week. This clears the way for the SN9 high altitude test flight in coming days, likely from the 22nd local time. SN10 build is complete and it is ready to pad test. The first booster is being stacked in the high bay building now. There is also a new 3mm test tank that has been moved to the pad area for pressure testing. The idea with a thinner tank is to save weight, but also to meet higher pressure benchmarks. When tested, the new tank will be taken to failure point.
