How to Connect a Spaceship Domain to Vercel Without Breaking Email DNS

The architecture Afftera actually uses

Four services that are often described as one thing are separate here:

Afftera does not use Spaceship Hosting for this website. The current Spacemail MX and SPF configuration is verified at the DNS layer. The Owner confirms that contact@afftera.com can currently send and receive email normally. Deliverability performance has not been independently tested or benchmarked for this article.

Before changing DNS

Make a record of every existing DNS entry before editing anything. In particular, identify which records serve the website and which serve email. A web connection normally involves A or CNAME records, while email can depend on MX, SPF, DKIM, and autodiscovery records.

Do not copy the values in this article into another project. The two apex addresses and the www CNAME below are evidence from Afftera's live configuration. Your Vercel project may show different project-specific values.

1. Get the exact DNS values from Vercel

Open the Domains area for the target Vercel project and add or select the domain you intend to connect. Use the values Vercel displays for that exact project and domain.

For Afftera, the verified web records on August 23, 2026 were:

@    A       216.198.79.1
@    A       64.29.17.1
www  CNAME   a6d73dc50c551585.vercel-dns-017.com

These are observations from Afftera's live configuration, not universal Vercel defaults.

2. Keep the domain on Spaceship nameservers

Afftera keeps authoritative DNS at Spaceship. The live nameservers are:

launch1.spaceship.net
launch2.spaceship.net

That means the Vercel web records are managed inside Spaceship Advanced DNS. The website can run on Vercel without moving authoritative DNS away from Spaceship.

3. Configure the apex A records

In Spaceship Advanced DNS, Afftera has two A records for the root host @:

@  A  216.198.79.1
@  A  64.29.17.1

After saving DNS changes in your own account, compare the public A response with the values Vercel gave your project. DNS changes can take time to appear across resolvers, so verify the public result instead of relying only on the editor state.

4. Configure the project-specific www CNAME

Afftera's www host points to the project-specific Vercel target:

www  CNAME  a6d73dc50c551585.vercel-dns-017.com

Vercel currently marks www.afftera.com as a valid configuration and shows a 308 redirect to afftera.com.

5. Preserve the mail records

The web records above do not replace the mail records. Afftera's current public mail DNS includes:

@  MX   0 mx1.spacemail.com
@  MX   0 mx2.spacemail.com
@  TXT  v=spf1 include:spf.spacemail.com ~all

The live Spaceship DNS table also contains Spacemail autodiscovery and DKIM records. Their presence is evidence of DNS configuration only. Separately, the Owner confirms that contact@afftera.com can currently send and receive email normally. Inbox placement, spam rate, sender reputation, and deliverability performance remain unverified.

6. Verify public DNS

Check each layer separately:

1. Query afftera.com for A records.
2. Query www.afftera.com for its CNAME.
3. Query afftera.com for MX records.
4. Query afftera.com for the SPF TXT record.
5. Compare the public responses with the intended configuration.

For Afftera, those public queries matched the live Spaceship DNS table on August 23, 2026.

7. Verify HTTPS and canonical behavior

The current public readback is:

https://afftera.com      -> HTTP 200, served by Vercel
https://www.afftera.com  -> HTTP 308 to https://afftera.com/

The public certificate for the apex domain is issued by Let's Encrypt and was valid at the time of the evidence check. This does not establish that Afftera uses a Spaceship SSL product.

What Afftera tested

• The domain appears in the Owner's Spaceship Domain Manager.
• Spaceship nameservers are active for the domain.
• The two apex A records and the project-specific www CNAME appear in Spaceship Advanced DNS.
• Public DNS returns those web records.
• Public DNS returns the current Spacemail MX and SPF records.
• Vercel marks the apex and www configuration as valid.
• The apex returns HTTP 200 over HTTPS.
• www returns HTTP 308 to the apex URL.

What Afftera did not test

• Spaceship Hosting
• A paid Spaceship SSL product
• Domain transfer
• Independent mailbox send/receive testing for this article; current send/receive status is Owner-confirmed
• Email deliverability, inbox placement, spam rate, or sender reputation
• Support response quality
• DNS propagation speed as a benchmark
• Alternative registrars or DNS providers in the same test

Safe DNS-change checklist

• □Record the current DNS table before editing.
• □Separate web records from mail records.
• □Copy values from the exact Vercel project, not from a generic tutorial.
• □Preserve required MX, SPF, DKIM, and autodiscovery records.
• □Verify A, CNAME, MX, and TXT responses publicly after the change.
• □Test both apex and www over HTTPS.
• □Confirm the intended canonical redirect.
• □Do not treat DNS presence as proof of mailbox deliverability.