Containers Shouldn't Dominate Commodity Discussions

SUPPLY CHAIN SECURITY n APPALACHIAN PETROCHEMICALS n BOOSTER FOR PROJECT CARGO

ISSUE 4 / 2017

Containers Shouldn’t Dominate BANISH Commodity Discussions THE BOX case study

A reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster is floated into Central Florida’s Port Canaveral atop the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.

Credit: Canaveral Port Authority

BLAST FROM THE PAST Reusable Rocket Boosters Provide Project Payloads

BY PAUL SCOTT ABBOTT But, while the area code wasn’t That launch station and adjoin- assigned by the Florida Public Service ing Kennedy Space Center make up Commission until 1999, the Sunshine what is typically viewed as America’s uite fittingly, the telephone State’s Atlantic Coast has been home to Spaceport. But a third nearby facility, area code for Central Flori- unmanned space launches even before Canaveral Port Authority’s Port Canav- da’s Space Coast is 321 – an astronaut Rear Adm. Alan Shepard eral, is increasingly coming into play as homage to the final three took off in May 1961 from what is now well, with the advent of reusable rocket Q numbers in the countdown known as Cape Canaveral Air Force boosters by the burgeoning commercial sequence for rocket launches. Station. space industry.

54 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com ISSUE 4 / 2017 See more about the Falcon 9 rocket, including video of the first successful landing of Falcon 9 first stage on droneship, at www.spacex.com/falcon9.

docks of returning boosters will become increasingly commonplace. In late March and early April, the process achieved a milestone as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., typically referred to simply as SpaceX, became the first company to successfully launch and return a booster that previously had been shot into space and recovered. Just as a Lexus that’s been driven tens of thousands of miles is not called “used” but rather is termed “pre- owned,” such boosters are referred to by SpaceX officials as “flight-proven.”

MANY HAPPY RETURNS While, according to Murray, the April transit marked the fifth time that SpaceX brought a landed booster into the port vertically positioned atop a specially fit- ted bargelike structure – an “autonomous spaceport drone ship” in SpaceX-speak – it was notably the first flight-proven one to be floated into Port Canaveral. A second such launch and return of a flight-proven SpaceX Falcon 9 booster to Port Canaveral took place in June, with several more on tap. Future SpaceX plans also call for launches of heavier rockets involving multiple reusable Fal- con 9 boosters. Reuse of the aluminum boosters is Indeed, Capt. John Murray, former are privileged to be critical to the SpaceX goal of lowering president and CEO of ocean carrier com- part of this special launch costs by 30 percent. And, with the pany Hapag-Lloyd USA, and, since early time in our coun- first-stage units representing about 70 2016, CEO of Port Canaveral, sees the try’s history. We percent of the cost of record of a typical reusable boosters, each with an empty look at it as a grow- launch, the recover-recondition-reuse weight of nearly 100 tons, providing a ing business for us.” program is being aggressively pursued. substantial boost to project cargo activ- As competing Murray offered an analogy: “If you ity at the seaport. commercial space built a 747, you sold seats and you flew it industry players to London and then disposed of it, that PORT EYES GROWTH move to save tens of would be a mighty expensive seat. But, “Absolutely, it’s a growth area for us,” millions of dollars by reusing the plane ...” Murray said, referring to the commercial per launch by reus- SpaceX, a Hawthorne, California- space industry and, specifically, reusable Capt. John Murray ing first-stage units based venture launched in 2002 by Elon rocket boosters. “It’s become a compo- Port Canaveral while advancing Musk, the multibillionaire founder of such nent of our business model now. programs aimed at ventures as PayPal and electric car leader “It’s an exciting time to be here,” he putting people on Mars, Murray antici- Tesla Inc., has another reason for seeking said. “We are in a unique position here and pates that the towing to Port Canaveral to master the vertical landing of rockets.

www.breakbulk.com BREAKBULK MAGAZINE 55 case study

Port Canaveral welcomed back a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster after its successful June 23 launch.

Credit: Canaveral Port Authority

The atmospheric conditions of Mars pre- Port Canaveral cargo terminal area leased SpaceX has two major competitors in clude the building of a runway long enough by SpaceX from GT USA, the U.S. arm of the commercial space arena, and Mur- to accommodate horizontal landings on global port operator Gulftainer. ray said he believes all three companies the Red Planet. And putting people on From there, the typical path for could soon be bringing activity through Mars is a key to the lofty SpaceX objective returned boosters includes lifting them Port Canaveral. of turning humanity into an interplan- by crane from drone ship to dock, trans- Kent, Washington-based Blue Ori- etary species. porting them by specialized flatbed gin, begun in 2000 by Amazon.com To date, SpaceX craft have been truck to a hangar at Cape Canaveral founder Jeff Bezos, hasn’t launched from engaged in activities much closer to Air Force Station and then taking them the Space Coast yet, but it has leased a home, such as delivering commercial by similar truck to a SpaceX facility in launch complex at Cape Canaveral and communications satellites into orbit and McGregor, Texas, for refurbishment. is building a massive manufacturing bringing U.S. National Aeronautics and Booster dimensions are such that the facility at nearby Exploration Park, with Space Administration cargoes to the units can fit under highway overpasses. plans for 2019 commencement of a new International Space Station. SpaceX maintains two autonomous launch program, likely to include return spaceport drone ships under lease from of boosters via Port Canaveral. A FIERY HICCUP an unspecified barge company, with one The other key player yet to engage Though there were no casualties, based on the U.S. Atlantic Coast and a from the Space Coast is Centennial, SpaceX’s program encountered a fiery second on the U.S. Pacific Coast – the Colorado-based United Launch Alliance, hiccup in September 2016 with the latter stationed to accommodate a lesser formed in 2006 as a 50-50 joint venture explosion of an unmanned rocket on level of launches from Vandenberg Air of Bethesda, Maryland-headquartered a Cape Canaveral launchpad. But the Force Base in Southern California. Lockheed Martin Corp. and Chicago- company’s program now appears to be in based Boeing Co. full swing, with preparations under way SHORT ON DETAILS With the Space Coast and Port Canav- for the carrying of astronauts to begin When it comes to providing details eral at its nucleus and reusable boosters in 2018. about the move, both SpaceX and at its core, one need not be a rocket scien- An in-house team leads the transporta- Gulftainer are remarkably hush-hush. tist to know that the countdown to more tion logistics efforts of SpaceX. In the case SpaceX officials declined multiple space-related project activity is on: 3-2-1... of the March-April activity, the 180-foot- interview requests, while Gulftainer Return ... Refurbish ... Repeat. BB tall booster that on March 30 launched retracted a press release on the March- a communications satellite and about 10 April activity, as SpaceX alleged minutes later safely landed upright in the inaccuracies and violation of a non- A professional journalist for nearly 50 years, Atlantic Ocean on the drone ship Of Course disclosure agreement. Gulftainer also U.S.-based Paul Scott Abbott has focused on I Still Love You was floated April 4 into a denied numerous requests for comment. transportation topics since the late 1980s.

56 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com ISSUE 4 / 2017