The startup offers a single solution to congestion problems on major launchpads: building mobile launchpads that work at sea. Spaceport plans to demonstrate its naval launch platform by launching four sounding rockets from a modified ship in the Gulf of Mexico in May.

“This will help us test our logistics, operational and regulatory procedures,” said Tom Marotta, the company’s founder and CEO, at a panel at the SpaceCom conference on Feb. These tests will lead to the development of a full-scale sea-based platform based on a ship design called an elevator. This ship can swim to a certain place and anchor to the sea bottom by lowering its feet. Then the boat can rise on its own from the water and serve as a platform for landing.

The advantage of The Spaceport Company’s concept is that it does not rely on any fixed infrastructure on land: all the resources required for launch are on board, and rockets launched from it use autonomous flight termination systems that do not require radar or other means. “What we’re really doing is building a new kind of spaceport,” he said. “We’re building a high-response spaceport to solve the spaceport congestion problem.”

Increased launch activity at Cape Canaveral threatens launch companies as the pace of activity strains infrastructure there. New spaceports specifically designed for small launch vehicles ran into problems. It took years for a proposed spaceport in Camden County, Ga. to obtain a license from the Federal Aviation Administration, but district voters blocked land acquisition for the site in a referendum last year in a decision upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court.

“It’s scalable,” Marotta said of the maritime approach. “It’s much easier to build more ships to meet the demand for more launches than to search for 100 acres somewhere on the shore.”

The company’s first sea-based platforms will operate in US territorial waters at a depth of up to 60 meters, a few kilometers from the shore. “We can work up and down the entire east coast,” he said, settling in any major industrial port. It will host small launch vehicles the size of Alpha Firefly Aerospace, capable of launching about one tonne into orbit.

Unlike commercial launch sites on land, The Spaceport Company’s offshore platforms do not require an FAA spaceport license known as Part 420. Said Pam Underwood, director of the FAA’s Space Ports Office during the panel.

But both he and Marotta said security issues will be addressed with a separate license to launch a vehicle launched from this platform. “We still meet the same safety criteria as a section 420 licensed site. It’s fully registered in the vehicle license,” he said. “We are just as safe and resilient.”

Launching from a naval base is not a new idea. The Multinational Sea Launch conducted dozens of launches of the Zenit-3SL rocket using a converted oil platform before it was scrapped for financial and geopolitical concerns. China has recently demonstrated that converted ships are used as launch platforms for small vehicles.

SpaceX has purchased two oil platforms, which it has renamed Phobos and Deimos, to convert into naval launch platforms for the Starship spacecraft. But Gwynn Shotwell, president of SpaceX, said earlier this month that the company sold the rigs after concluding that “it’s not the right platform” for it, but added that the company will most likely use sea rigs in the long run. platforms for cars.

Marotta said Spaceport will soon announce “deepening partnerships” with launch vehicle suppliers. It has a memorandum of understanding with Virginia Space, which operates the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, to explore how the company’s platforms can be used to expand the spaceport’s existing launch facilities. He said he hopes the partnership, along with demonstration launches in May, will help raise money to build platforms that can be operational as early as 2025. “It’s not insignificant money,” he said, without being more specific about the fund his company is trying to raise.