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Concept
Autonomous spaceport drone ship
Summary
An autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) is an ocean-going vessel derived from a deck barge, outfitted with station-keeping engines and a large landing platform, and is autonomously positioned when on station for a landing. Construction of the drone ships was commissioned by aerospace company SpaceX to allow recovery of launch vehicle boosters at sea for missions that do not carry sufficient fuel to return to the launch site after boosting spacecraft onto an orbital or interplanetary trajectory.
SpaceX has three operational drone ships: Just Read the Instructions (II) (JRTI) and A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG), operating in the Atlantic for launches from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), operating in the Pacific for supporting missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base. JRTI operated in the Pacific Ocean for Vandenberg Air Force Base launches from 2016 to 2019 before leaving the Port of Los Angeles in August 2019.
The ASDS are a key early component of the SpaceX objective to significantly lower the price of space launch services through "full and rapid reusability", part of the multi-year reusable rocket development program engineered by SpaceX.
SpaceX offers three options, depending on launch requirements: landing on land, landing at sea or expending the first stage, in order of increased performance and cost. Any Falcon flights launched into geostationary orbit or exceeding escape velocity require landing at sea, or expending the first stage.
Less demanding launches from Florida can return to Landing Zones 1 and 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, while less demanding launches from California can return to Landing Zone 4. Around three quarters of recovered Falcon boosters land at sea .
In 2009, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk articulated ambitions for "creating a paradigm shift in the traditional approach for reusing rocket hardware". In October 2014, SpaceX announced that they had contracted with a Louisiana shipyard to build a floating landing platform for reusable orbital launch vehicles.
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