SpaceX doing trial runs of specialized barge for transporting Starship/Superheavy from Boca Chica to Florida
SpaceX has now confirmed that it is doing trial runs of a barge specifically designed for transporting Starship/Superheavy from the manufacturing facility in Boca Chica to its Florida launchpads.
[SpaceX’s Vice President of Launch, Kiko] Dontchev also clarified that both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage would be tilted to a horizontal position for maritime transit, in response to an artist’s rendering of a Starship traveling vertically aboard a vessel. “Initial deliveries are a single booster or ship per trip, with the plan to move to multiple vehicles per transit sooner than later,” he wrote. “You’ll thank me later.”
These barge trials, combined with the fact that SpaceX has already shipped significant Starship/Superheavy components to Florida even as it builds rocket manufacturing facility there, strongly suggest the first Florida launches are not too far in the future, possibly even this year.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
SpaceX has now confirmed that it is doing trial runs of a barge specifically designed for transporting Starship/Superheavy from the manufacturing facility in Boca Chica to its Florida launchpads.
[SpaceX’s Vice President of Launch, Kiko] Dontchev also clarified that both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage would be tilted to a horizontal position for maritime transit, in response to an artist’s rendering of a Starship traveling vertically aboard a vessel. “Initial deliveries are a single booster or ship per trip, with the plan to move to multiple vehicles per transit sooner than later,” he wrote. “You’ll thank me later.”
These barge trials, combined with the fact that SpaceX has already shipped significant Starship/Superheavy components to Florida even as it builds rocket manufacturing facility there, strongly suggest the first Florida launches are not too far in the future, possibly even this year.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Going to need a way to get them to Vandenberg too.
What route does the barge take? I would presume it would use the Intracoastal Waterway from Brownsville to the Florida panhandle; the Waterway doesn’t extend completely to Key West. But if one sailed the western coast to that point it could then pick up the parts of the Waterway on the eastern seaboard to its final destination.
Alas for SpaceX, the Central Florida Canal was never done.
Seems like flying them there may be the fastest and simplest way to move them.
No plane big enough. An in-flight emergency was declared with one of our C-5 jets over the Pacific.
Central Alabama has a massive steel plant….and an actual port of call at Birmingport.
We have the Tennis/Tom and massive stainless plants.
The AN-225 could fly not just Buran (Bison bombers could, with modifications)–but the AN-225 could have flown the entire Energiya Core Block.
The Soviet Union produced not just the largest planes, but choppers to boot.
I am still livid we didn’t keep those records.
“Going to need a way to get them to Vandenberg too.”
Starships can fly partial orbit point-to-point Starbase-Vandy.
Boosters, shipped via Panama Canal.
Jeff Wright wrote:
“No plane big enough. ”
Perhaps Seawriter meant flying the boosters with their own engines, not on the back of a plane.
Which seems like the way to go to me…so long as you can get clearance to overfly a chunk of Florida.
Saville,
Overflying a chunk of Florida is going to be SOP for Starship soon enough, but I think sea transit will do in the early going.
Starship/SuperHeavy is very like the old Boeing Space Freighter.
I forget if they could self ferry.
Views of newly manufactured 1st stage Super Heavys over flying FL from TX to Cape Canaveral will be Spectacular.
Plenty of Delta V available including propellant to ease re-entry.
There have been improvements in steel handling of use to Elon, Stoke, etc:
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-real-3d-steel-shipbuilding.html