Rocket Lab USA, Inc., Long Beach, Calif., is converting a deck barge for use as a specialized platform to catch at-sea rocket landings.
The company said it acquired the 2010-built, 400’x105'x25' barge Oceanus from Canal Barge, Inc., New Orleans, and renamed it Return On Investment. Conversion work will be performed throughout 2025, with the barge expected to be ready for service in 2026.
Modifications will include the addition of autonomous ground support equipment to capture and secure the landed rocket, blast shielding to protect equipment during landings, and station-keeping thrusters for precise positioning, Rocket Lab said in a statement.
Increasingly, aerospace companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, The Spaceport Company, and Rocket Lab are leveraging marine assets, such as droneships and deck barges, to capture rockets returning to Earth by landing them on the ocean’s surface for recovery and reuse.
Rocket Lab's modified barge will act as an ocean landing platform for Rocket Lab's Neutron rocket, a reusable medium-lift vehicle designed for satellite constellations, national security, cargo delivery to Earth orbits, and lunar/interplanetary missions. Neutron offers two reusable mission profiles, including one for land-based first-stage landings at Rocket Lab's Virginia complex and another for propulsive landings on the barge.
Rocket Lab said it expects Neutron to make its first launch from Virginia in the second half of 2025.
Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Sir Peter Beck, said, “We’re working hard to bring Neutron online with one of the fastest development schedules in history for a new rocket, because we know medium-lift launch opportunities are limited and space access is being stifled. Neutron’s debut launch planned for later this year will help to ease that bottleneck, and our new landing platform will open space access even further by enabling even more mission opportunities that require maximum Neutron performance.”
