Editor's take: SpaceX could take its first ocean spaceport gear up for rocket launches as early equally next twelvemonth. Rather than build the infrastructure from scratch, the aerospace industry elected to purchase retired oil rigs and refit them for rocket launches. Presumably, SpaceX is saving a lot of coin by going this route.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently said on Twitter that the floating spaceport, dubbed Deimos, is currently under structure for launch in 2022.

Final year, a SpaceX subsidiary called Lone Star Mineral Development purchased two retired oil rigs for $iii.5 million each from offshore drilling contractor Valaris. SpaceX named the rigs Phobos and Deimos after the two moons of Mars and elected to motility the onetime from the Port of Galveston to Pascagoula, Mississippi, earlier this year. Both rigs are atively undergoing a refit to accommodate rocket launches.

Musk in February said SpaceX's reusable Starship launch vehicles would fly to and land on the platforms earlier heading to space. SpaceX eventually wants to utilize Starship to transport the get-go humans to Mars, hence the tie-in with the moon names. Musk has even expressed interest in moving to the Red Planet as i of its offset colonists.

SpaceX successfully launched and landed a Starship image for the first time last month. Previous attempts were able to go into the air and perform impressive maneuvers, but struggled to stick the landing without exploding.