SpaceX announces $100 billion Starbase launch site

A new spaceport will bring 10 launch pads to Louisiana’s Gulf Coast and support thousands of Starship launches per year.

SpaceX and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced Tuesday (Aug. 25) a $100 billion investment in the state’s Vermilion Parish to build “Starbase Louisiana,” a sprawling new manufacturing and launch facility for SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket. It will be one of the biggest projects in the state’s history, and serve as SpaceX’s largest center for spaceflight operations, reported Space.com.

Once complete, the new site will feature five complexes that feature two Starship towers each, for a total of 10 launch pads across the facility, each with its own propellant farm. That fuel will also be produced onsite as well.

“We’re planning to build a self-sustaining spaceport with its own propellant production, power generation, deep water shipping capabilities, vehicle processing facilities, and probably an airport,” SpaceX President Gwynn Shotwell said during the announcement event. “And thanks to the abundant resources here in Louisiana, we have ready access to the natural gas that fuels these rockets to get to orbit,” reported Space.com.

SpaceX and Louisiana officials say the site will eventually support thousands of launches per year and will be central to SpaceX’s effort to dramatically increase Starship’s flight rate. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk recently estimated that Starship will be launching more than 30 times per day by 2030, which equates to more than 10,000 flights per year.

Landry framed the project in historic terms, saying.”This will be the place from which America reaches farther than it has ever reached before. In 1803, Louisiana gave America a continent. Today, Louisiana and SpaceX will give America the stars,” reported Space.com.

Starship is SpaceX’s next-generation, fully reusable launch vehicle. The giant rocket is still under development, but the company is quickly making strides to mature the rocket to operational status. SpaceX is preparing for Starship’s 14th test flight in September, and is on a tight timeline to qualify the rocket for operational missions.

Shotwell said SpaceX’s existing infrastructure can’t support the number or cadence of Starship launches the company anticipates reaching, and tied Starbase Louisiana to SpaceX’s long-term goal of using Starship to make human life interplanetary. In the nearer term, Starship is also tasked with returning astronauts to the surface of the moon, reported Space.com.

NASA has contracted SpaceX to design a lunar lander version of Starship for the agency’s Artemis program. Artemis III is scheduled for mid-2027, and will launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft to Earth orbit to practice rendezvous and docking maneuvers with one of SpaceX’s current “Version 3” Starship test vehicles. The first moon landing of the program is planned for Artemis IV in 2028, giving SpaceX a fast-approaching deadline to mature Starship from test article to crew-certified lunar lander.

For the Artemis IV Starship to carry out its mission of landing astronauts on the surface of the moon and then launching them back to lunar orbit to rendezvous with Orion, and for any Starship mission beyond low Earth orbit, the spacecraft requires refueling launches of additional “tanker” Starships. Artemis IV’s Starship may need up to a dozen such refueling flights. But Starbase Louisiana’s 10 launch pads will be for more than propellant delivery, reported Space.com.

SpaceX plans to launch its next-generation Starlink internet satellite constellation aboard Starship. To date, SpaceX has launched more than 300 Starlink missions aboard its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which has delivered more than 11,000 of the satellites to orbit. Already preparing for the transition to Starship, SpaceX just launched its last Falcon 9 Starlink mission from Florida, and plans to fly the remaining Falcon 9 Starlink launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. SpaceX intends to retire Falcon 9 entirely once Starship is fully operational.

The company is also planning for Starship to launch its huge artificial intelligence network and build out an orbital infrastructure to “move supercomputing to space,” Shotwell said, reported Space.com.

“Put all of this together, and these tasks will require thousands of launches,” Shotwell said. “Starbase Louisiana is being designed from day one to support this dramatic increase in launch cadence.”

Construction on the new Starbase is expected to begin in 2027, with the first launch from the site targeted for 2029, SpaceX said.

Starbase Louisiana will be SpaceX’s biggest undertaking ever, and likely the eventual hub of the company’s launch operations. “This will be a project like no other,” Shotwell said, “another piece of science fiction transported into reality,” as reported by Space.com.

All Credit To: Space.com