Awesome catch PhilW!Somebody else took a good photograph of it!https://twitter.com/kscottz/status/547867380169207809
This to me indicates they are very very confident of landing on the barge, otherwise why go to the bother of creating a semi permanent structure?
What's the consensus on when the ASDS barge will leave port to support the Jan 6th launch? I figure two to three days to transit and then get everything set up and running, so maybe 3 Jan?
If they are offloading to a port where there is a cruise ship next door then obviously the rocket will have to be free of hazardous materials, right? This means they will have to 'safe' the rocket at sea somewhere.
Good find. Nice detail. Any idea what the white/alum jig is for?
The fact this structure was not present at the originally scheduled launch date makes me wonder what the plan was for barge offload then.
It seems overbuilt for the task of holding up an empty unfuelled stage. I wonder if this is the launch mount from Spaceport USA diverted to Jacksonville for temporary use? Possibly its just a case of "we know this design works for holding up stages, build another one"The fact this structure was not present at the originally scheduled launch date makes me wonder what the plan was for barge offload then. Perhaps the installation of it was one of the reasons for the current delay.I wonder if we will see these built at other landing sites?