Meet Elon Musk's droneship ‘Of Course I Still Love You' — which catches falling rockets, not hearts

Time of India

18-06-2025

It sounds like the chorus of a late-night emotional ballad, or maybe the name of a Taylor Swift album. But 'Of Course I Still Love You' isn't about heartbreak. It's about hardware. Flaming, billion-dollar hardware plummeting from space. This isn't a Nicholas Sparks movie—it's
SpaceX
's most poetic piece of machinery: a robot barge designed to catch rockets with precision and flair.. No, this isn't a Nicholas Sparks sequel. It's the name of one of SpaceX's autonomous drone ships that literally catches rockets. Imagine a robot butler crossed with a landing pad, floating in the Pacific, whispering 'come home, baby' to tired Falcon 9 boosters. And the kicker? The name isn't Musk being melodramatic. It's a tribute to
Iain M. Banks
' sci-fi novels, where sentient starships have names that sound like sarcastic tweets. One is even called "No More Mr. Nice Gaius." In a world where billionaires build rocket ships and quote sci-fi for fun, 'Of Course I Still Love You' is not a love song. It's an interplanetary punchline that lands rockets.
What is Elon Musk's 'Of Course I Still Love You'?
Despite its romantic name, Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) is a giant floating landing pad, technically known as an Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS). It's a modified barge outfitted with robotic precision and steel arms of destiny that help recover Falcon 9 first-stage boosters after launch. Located off the West Coast at Long Beach, California, it's essentially the oceanic version of a space parking valet. The booster detaches from the rocket, flips itself mid-air like a gymnast, fires retro thrusters, and lands gently—on a ship that's floating. On water. While moving. In waves. It's like trying to land a skyscraper on a surfboard.
Why Elon Musk gave this name to the droneship
Elon Musk didn't just wake up one day and decide to name his drone ship like a Taylor Swift B-side. The name comes from the Culture series by author Iain M. Banks, where massive sentient spaceships have delightfully eccentric names like 'You Would If You Really Loved Me' and 'So Much for Subtlety.' Musk, a big Banks fan, borrowed 'Of Course I Still Love You' as a loving geek tribute. Because if you're going to catch space junk mid-air, might as well do it with emotional flair.
Why does it catch rockets anyway?
Because rocket boosters are expensive. Like, really expensive. Instead of tossing them into the ocean after every launch (as was standard practice for decades), SpaceX's whole business model thrives on reusability. By landing and reusing boosters, the company saves hundreds of millions of dollars and reduces waste—kind of like upcycling, but instead of mason jars, it's billion-dollar rocket stages.
Plus, it looks awesome on livestreams. Nothing says 'future' like a 16-story rocket doing a slow, graceful ballet move onto a floating pad with a romantic name.
Sibling ships and more sentiments pouring in
OCISLY isn't alone. Its East Coast sibling is called 'Just Read the Instructions', also a Banks reference, because apparently even rocket landings need passive-aggressive reminders. These ships are part of the ASDS fleet and are key players in SpaceX's vision of rapid, cost-effective space travel.
Just think your rocket takes off from Florida, launches a satellite, does a quick pirouette in the stratosphere, then lands back on a boat named like it just got out of therapy.
When sci-fi becomes real science
The sheer absurdity of naming high-tech rocket-catching machines after fictional spaceships with emotional baggage is peak Musk. But beneath the quirk lies serious innovation. These drone ships have helped SpaceX pull off over 270 booster landings and counting. They've turned what once looked like a Michael Bay explosion into a controlled, reusable, economically viable maneuver.
In short: they make science fiction real. And do it with names that make engineers and English majors equally happy.
So, next time you see a Falcon 9 rocket descend from space and land upright on a tiny square in the middle of the ocean, remember—it's not just landing. It's being welcomed by a giant, floating robot that says: Of Course I Still Love You.
Because nothing says progress like marrying sci-fi references with real-world rocket science. Elon Musk didn't just build a space empire—he made it poetic, one oddly-named barge at a time.