SpaceX's Mr. Steven, a unique fairing-catching ship, could soon make its Florida debut

Emre Kelly | Florida Today

Show Caption Hide Caption SpaceX's Mr. Steven gets a larger net for catching rocket fairings SpaceX's Mr. Steven gets a larger net for catching rocket fairings, or nose cones, which the company hopes will help reduce costs.

Visitors to Port Canaveral should soon see a bright yellow horizontal net supported by the four massive arms of Mr. Steven, a one-of-a-kind SpaceX ship designed to function as a catcher's mitt for plummeting rocket nose cones.

Currently based at the Port of Los Angeles, the ship is expected to arrive on the Space Coast next month, presumably to support one of two Florida missions on the company's manifest through the end of the year.

"Our friends at SpaceX met with us a couple months ago," Port Canaveral CEO John Murray said during his annual "State of the Port" address last week. "They're bringing two more vessels to the port."

Murray went on to confirm that Mr. Steven is slated to arrive in early December.

The ship's planned arrival at the port next month, combined with statements by Musk made via Twitter Tuesday night, indicate that teams will likely try to recover a rocket fairing in December. The company's manifest includes two more Eastern Range missions in 2018: An International Space Station resupply on Dec. 4 and the launch of an Air Force GPS satellite no sooner than mid-December. ISS missions with Dragon spacecraft do not include fairings, so the most likely recovery attempt would be during the GPS III launch.

SpaceX is also scheduled to launch one last time from the Western Range in California before the end of the year.

The arrival of the second ship mentioned by Murray, however, has been known since February – A Shortfall of Gravitas will enter into service as a sister ship to Of Course I Still Love You, the current drone ship based at the port designed to recover Falcon 9 first stages. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk previously told FLORIDA TODAY that A Shortfall of Gravitas should be ready for its debut in 2019 to support Falcon Heavy launches, which feature multiple booster landings.

The ships are named after spacecraft featured in Scottish author Iain M. Banks' "Culture" novels.

The case for Mr. Steven

The three largest – and most expensive – components of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket are the first stage, second stage and payload fairing. The fairing is a two-part nose cone designed to protect spacecraft from aerodynamic stresses during liftoff and is later jettisoned.

Musk believes his company's pursuit of rocket reusability, or the refurbishment of previously flown hardware for future flights, is critical to profitability – and to his vision of humanity as multi-planetary species. He likens reusability to aircraft, which are abundant and aren't "thrown away" after every flight like most rockets of today.

So far, his company has demonstrated consistent first stage reusability through nearly 30 successful landings on ships and land-based pads. As of October, fifteen missions had flown with "flight proven" boosters.

The payload fairing, while not the most expensive component, is still worth around $6 million per mission, according to Musk. Mr. Steven is ultimately designed to catch the two fairing halves as they fall toward the ocean.

“Would you try to recover that?” Musk jokingly said last year, likening the fairing halves to a pallet with $6 million in cash falling from the sky. “Yes, you would.”

Space-related growth at Port Canaveral

Port Canaveral's business in recent years – both passenger and cargo – has been growing, meaning the arrival of two more SpaceX ships on top of the existing fleet will likely translate to some maneuvering by officials to accommodate the company.

Of Course I Still Love You has been stationed here for years, but it requires at least one support vessel plus multiple tugs for the last leg of its return journey. That includes the careful maneuvering of the drone ship to a position deep in the port near a crane designed to lift recovered rockets and gently move them onto land for inspection and refurbishment.

Yet another SpaceX ship, Go Searcher, was recently outfitted with a helipad and medical facility designed to support astronauts after they splash down in the Atlantic Ocean in the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft. Go Searcher also includes the crane necessary to lift the capsule out of the water and position it on deck.

If schedules hold, those crewed missions are slated to begin no earlier than the middle of next year.

Combine SpaceX's planned fleet with with other cargo ships and, at times, up to six massive cruise ships at Port Canaveral, and Murray's concerns become clear – though it's a good problem to have.

"Our challenge is where we put them," Murray said. "All these vessels have to go somewhere and we just don't have the extra bulkhead to park people. That's one of our challenges."

SpaceX teams several miles north of the port, meanwhile, are prepping a Falcon 9 rocket for a Thursday liftoff from Kennedy Space Center with a Qatari communications satellite. That mission, known as Es'hail-2, has an almost two-hour window opening at 3:46 p.m. and will include a drone ship landing.

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @EmreKelly.

Launch Thursday:

Rocket: SpaceX Falcon 9

Mission: Es'hail-2 communications satellite

Launch Time: 3:46 p.m.

Window: To 5:29 p.m.

Launch Pad: 39A at Kennedy Space Center

Landing: Yes, Of Course I Still Love You drone ship

Weather: 60 percent "go"

Join floridatoday.com/space for countdown updates and chat at 2:45 p.m. Thursday, including streaming of SpaceX's webcast starting about 15 minutes before liftoff.