Elon Musk revealed last year that SpaceX would one-day develop floating ‘spaceports’ to launch its Starship rocket to the moon and Mars – and it seems that time has finally come.
A job posting on the firm’s site lists a new position for an Offshore Operations Engineer who would ‘work as part of a team of engineers and technicians to design and build an operational offshore rocket launch facility.’
Musk also confirmed the listing on his personal Twitter page Tuesday, writing: ‘SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon & hypersonic travel around Earth.’
The billionaire first shared plans of the floating spaceports in 2019, stating it would need to be 20 miles offshore and accessed through tunnels dug under the water – which ties in The Boring Company.
A job posting on the firm’s site lists a new position for an Offshore Operations Engineer that would ‘work as part of a team of engineers and technicians to design and build an operational offshore rocket launch facility’
The opening for an Offshore Operations Engineer does not provide a date for when it was first published, but Musk did confirm its legitimacy late Tuesday afternoon.
The position is located in Brownsville, Texas, which is near SpaceX’s testing site in Boca Chia, as first reported on by Futurism.
The floating spaceports would be used to launch Starship rockets to the moon and Mars.
‘Most Starship spaceports will probably need to be around 20 miles / 30km offshore for acceptable noise levels,’ Musk wrote on Twitter in 2019.
Musk also confirmed the listing on his personal Twitter page Tuesday, writing: ‘SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon & hypersonic travel around Earth’
This, he added, would be especially true ‘for frequent daily flights, as would occur for point to point flights on Earth.’
‘Starship will be fully reusable with booster reflight possible every few hours & ship reflight every 8 hours. No boats needed,’ Musk wrote on Twitter.
Following the success of Musk’s Faclon 9 rocket launch that sent two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station last month, the CEO declared the Starship rocket his ‘top priority.’
In a company email, Musk urged SpaceX employees to accelerate progress on Starship ‘dramatically and immediately’, a week after its historic first crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
‘Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship,’ Musk wrote on Saturday in the email, seen by CNBC.
SpaceX is planning to send humans to Mars using a two-stage spacecraft composed of Starship (the passenger-carrying section) and the Super Heavy rocket booster.
However, SpaceX has some work to do to finish the construction of Starship, previously known as ‘BFR’, at SpaceX’s Texas development site.
Only last month, SpaceX’s fourth Starship rocket prototype exploded into a ball of flames following a pressurized test at the Boca Chica facility in Texas.
Elon Musk shared an artist impression from 2019 of what the spaceports would look like
The floating spaceports would be used to launch Starship rockets to the moon and Mars. Starship, a rocket standing 394 feet tall, is designed to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond
Following the success of Musk’s Faclon 9 rocket launch that sent two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station last month, Musk declared the Starship rocket his ‘top priority’
‘Unfortunately what we thought was going to be a minor test of a quick disconnect ended up being a big problem,’ Musk told Reuters, referring to the explosion.
‘Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship,’ Musk wrote on Saturday in the email, seen by CNBC.
SpaceX is planning to send humans to Mars using a two-stage spacecraft composed of Starship (the passenger-carrying section) and the Super Heavy rocket booster.
However, SpaceX has some work to do to finish the construction of Starship, previously known as ‘BFR’, at SpaceX’s Texas development site.
Only last month, SpaceX’s fourth Starship rocket prototype exploded into a ball of flames following a pressurised test at the Boca Chica facility in Texas.
‘Unfortunately what we thought was going to be a minor test of a quick disconnect
WHAT IS ELON MUSK’S ‘BFR’?
The BFR (Big F***ing Rocket), now known as Starship, will complete all missions and is smaller than the ones Musk announced in 2016.
The SpaceX CEO said the rocket would take its first trip to the red planet in 2022, carrying only cargo, followed by a manned mission in 2024 and claimed other SpaceX’s products would be ‘cannibalised’ to pay for it.
The rocket would be partially reusable and capable of flight directly from Earth to Mars.
Once built, Musk believes the rocket could be used for travel on Earth – saying that passengers would be able to get anywhere in under an hour.
