{"id":292218,"date":"2026-06-01T20:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T20:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/292218\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T20:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T20:50:12","slug":"ark-like-barge-will-haul-spacex-starships-to-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/292218\/","title":{"rendered":"Ark-like barge will haul SpaceX Starships to Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

A black barge with a white tent that recently floated into a South Texas port has\u00a0SpaceX watchers<\/a> excited about the prospect of Starship<\/a> taking to the seas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Starbase-headquartered company has said it would use barges to float the rockets to Florida for launches from there until the Starship factory<\/a> that it\u2019s building at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center is complete.<\/p>\n

The company has been in talks with port officials<\/a> about a 50-year lease for an 83-acre site that would be used as a terminal for the 400-foot-long rockets. Those negotiations are ongoing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SpaceX watchers caught images of the craft that looks like a giant covered wagon or maybe an ark. A tent with a curved top and a large access door on one end covers the barge.<\/p>\n

Ship tracking services showed\u00a0Marmac 31 arrived with its tug, Signet Lightning, on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SpaceX didn\u2019t make its goal of launching Starship from Florida by the end of 2025<\/a>, and it hasn\u2019t announced its current timeline. But the Space Force has said it could occur later this year<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The company already has one launch tower and plans for two more across Kennedy and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.<\/p>\n

The rocket is currently grounded<\/a> while\u00a0SpaceX investigates what went wrong with the booster that malfunctioned during the prototype\u2019s 12th flight May 22.<\/p>\n

The booster crashed into the Gulf of Mexico after separating from the Starship upper stage, which prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to ground the craft and require the investigation before allowing the craft to return to flight.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A black barge with a white tent that recently floated into a South Texas port has\u00a0SpaceX watchers excited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[123419,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-292218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-austinlatest","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}