TOKYO - The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has decided that if oil rigs and wind farms can float around in the ocean, why not rocket launchpads? On July 7, BOEM published a request for information (RFI) seeking details from companies and organizations interested in conducting space launch activities from the outer continental shelf - those offshore regions within the U.S. exclusive economic zone that extend up to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from shore.
Currently, that watery real estate is mostly used for oil and gas drilling and wind farms, but the Interior Department also issues leases for “other authorized marine-related purposes,” which could now include offshore launch facilities. BOEM is considering whether these concepts might involve repurposing existing offshore infrastructure, like former oil and gas rigs, or building new, purpose-built floating platforms dedicated to commercial space launches, reentries, and related shenanigans.
The RFI asks for details on potential concepts, including proposed locations, technical aspects, and environmental and legal considerations. “BOEM is issuing this RFI to improve its understanding of these considerations and to inform potential future interagency coordination, policy development, or guidance,” the agency stated, clearly hoping to avoid any policy oopsies before they happen.
Interest in offshore launches has been growing, mainly to relieve congestion at overcrowded spaceports like Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg. SpaceX already uses coastal waters for Dragon spacecraft recoveries, and other companies are eyeing similar moves. “The Outer Continental Shelf presents a significant opportunity to support the future of America’s space economy,” said Matt Giacona, acting director of BOEM, in a statement that sounds like it was written by someone who really wants to see rockets launch from a converted oil platform.
One company already working on this is Seagate Space, which has designed a purpose-built floating launch platform and has collaboration agreements with Firefly Aerospace and Lockheed Martin. Sean Fortener, co-founder and COO of Seagate Space, called the RFI a positive development and said his company would respond. “From our standpoint, the discussion has shifted from whether offshore launch is possible to how the United States develops a safe, scalable and commercially sustainable offshore launch capability,” he said, adding that he hopes this is just the start of a broader federal conversation.
The RFI comes as the White House is updating its national space transportation policy, which is expected to include provisions on spaceport infrastructure. Michael Kratsios, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), hinted at the Space Symposium in April that the forthcoming policy will incentivize private-sector partners to co-invest in launch infrastructure. Charlie Powell, assistant director for space and spectrum at OSTP, noted at the AIAA ASCEND conference in May that they’ve been weighing the benefits of concentrated launch infrastructure against the redundancy of multiple locations. “It depends on what you’re optimizing for,” he said, which is a polite way of saying they haven’t figured it out yet.
Fortener summed it up: “We believe the future of offshore launch is a network of mobile spaceports that complements existing land-based infrastructure by expanding capacity, increasing operational flexibility and supporting a broad range of commercial and government missions.” In other words, the ocean is the new space coast.