Image via Jack Beyer for Spaceflight.com
You have to love outside the box thinking from Elon Musk’s SpaceX. According to CNBC, the company acquired two deepwater oil rigs in 2020, to turn them into Starship launchpads.
Public records detail two Valaris rigs were sold for $3.5 million USD each in July 2020, just before the offshore oil rig company filed for bankruptcy.
SpaceX has renamed these offshore oil rigs Deimos and Phobos, paying homage to moons from Mars. The rigs are currently located in Port Brownsville, near Boca Chica, Texas, where Starship is currently under development.
Records detail Lone Star Mineral Development acquired the two rigs in July 2020. The limited liability corporation was incorporated one month prior to the sale and registered in the name of SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen.
Tesla is currently hiring for offshore positions in Brownsville, presumably for work on the newly acquired oil rigs.
Jack Beyer, a photographer for Spaceflight.com, shared images on Wednesday of one of these new oil rigs. His photos show ‘Deimos’ has already been painted on the helipad and lifeboats. Elon Musk liked Beyer’s tweet sharing these photos.
It’ll be interesting to follow the conversion of these oil rigs into launchpads. Stay tuned, as we’re sure people will be following developments closely.
