Floating launch platforms Orbital launch platforms were initially modified ships, but specific platforms were later produced specifically to be orbital launch vessels. The concept was pioneered in the late 1990s by a US, Russian, Norwegian and Ukrainian commercial consortium. The Chinese space agency did their first orbital launch from a ship in 2019. It was unclear if the shipboard launch was a special demonstration mission, or if China was putting a new launch service provider capability into place.
Floating landing platforms All early
orbital launch vehicle stages were
expended, the booster stages were destroyed when re-entering the atmosphere or on impact with the ground or ocean. After over four years of
research and technology development,
SpaceX first landed
Falcon 9 boosters on land in 2015, on a floating landing platform in 2016, so the platform can hold its position for launch vehicle landing. This platform was first deployed in January 2015 when SpaceX attempted a
controlled descent flight test to land the first stage of
Falcon 9 flight 14 on a solid surface after it was used to loft a contracted payload toward Earth orbit. The platform utilizes
GPS position information to navigate and hold its precise position. The rocket
landing leg span is and must not only land within the -wide barge deck, but must also deal with
ocean swells and
GPS errors. SpaceX CEO
Elon Musk first displayed a photograph of the newly designated "
autonomous spaceport drone ship" in November 2014. The ship is designed to hold position to within , even under storm conditions. On 8 April 2016, the first stage of the rocket that launched the spacecraft ahead of
CRS-8, successfully landed on the drone ship named
Of Course I Still Love You, the first successful landing of a rocket booster on a floating platform. By early 2018, SpaceX had two operational drone ships and had a third under construction. By September 2018, sea platform landings had become routine for the
SpaceX launch vehicles, with over 23 attempted and 17 successful recoveries. ,
Blue Origin was in development and intending to land the first stage boosters of
New Glenn on a
hydrodynamically-stabilized ship. They purchased a ship that had been built in 2004 as a
roll-on/roll-off cargo ship to begin refit and testing. with the goal to make the booster stages
reusable. The moving ship idea was abandoned before development was complete and the ship was
scrapped in 2022. The replacement design by Blue Origin was to refit a barge, similar but larger than the SpaceX droneship barges, for use as a landing platform.
Landing Platform Vessel 1 (LPV-1), formerly known as
DAMEN MANGALIA 522520, is also known by Blue Origin as
Jacklyn, the same name as its predecessor ship that was scrapped. LPV-1 arrived in Port Canaveral in September 2024, and is expected to be used to recover launched boosters on the
Atlantic Ocean, downrange of the
Blue Origin Florida launch facility, beginning in 2025. Rocket Lab is also preparing their 400ft long
Return On Investment landing platform (formerly
Oceanus) for their Neutron rocket. • The first stage of the
I-Space's Hyperbola-3 rocket is expected to land vertically using landing legs to land on a floating platform, Xingji Guihang (“Interstellar Return”). == Operation ==