Just Read the Instructions (JRTI) is a SpaceX autonomous spaceport droneship (ASDS) operating out of Port Canaveral, Florida. The droneship is built upon a modified barge – Marmac 303 – and is named after a spacecraft of the same name from the novel ‘The Player of Games‘, from the Culture series of books by author Iain M. Banks.

JRTI droneship is a modified barge outfitted with a large landing platform, station-keeping thrusters, and other essential equipment. This configuration allows SpaceX to land Falcon boosters at sea during high-velocity missions where the booster cannot carry enough fuel for a return-to-launch-site landing.

Just Read the Instructions was originally based in California from 2015 to 2019, supporting missions that landed in the Pacific Ocean. In 2019, JRTI sailed through the Panama Canal and transferred to Port Canaveral to support the increasing number of missions launched from Cape Canaveral. This created a two-year gap, between 2019 and 2021, when SpaceX did not operate a droneship in the Pacific Ocean.

Just Read the Instructions is the second SpaceX droneship to bear this name. The original pilot SpaceX droneship, which operated for two experimental landings in the Atlantic Ocean in early 2015, was the first to use the name but was retired and replaced in June 2015. The JRTI name was then given to the new droneship that was slated to operate in the Pacific Ocean.

JRTI was constructed in a Louisiana shipyard alongside the Of Course I Still Love You droneship. To reach its new home in California, the ship had to pass through the Panama Canal. The droneship was too wide to fit through the canal locks in its full design, so its extra wing extensions – designed to provide a larger landing pad – had to be placed on deck for installation upon final arrival in California.