WASHINGTON — As SpaceX prepares for its next Starship test flight, the company is also working to expand a facility in Texas to build and launch the vehicles.
On May 20, SpaceX completed a wet suit test of the vehicle that will conduct the fourth integrated test flight, fuel the vehicle and go through a practice countdown. This test was one of the last milestones before SpaceX’s attempt at launch.
“Starship Flight 4 in about 2 weeks,” Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, mentioned on social networks after the exam. “The primary goal is to achieve maximum input heating.” The upper stage, or nacelle, broke apart while returning to the previous test flight on March 14.
SpaceX will also need an updated launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration. At 39Thursday Space Symposium in April Kelvin Coleman, the FAA’s associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said completion of the license modification in May was possible, but stopped short of confirming it would be ready by the end of the month.
Another SpaceX official said recently that he expects Starship to be ready for launch once the FAA issues an updated license. “We’re still working on licensing with the FAA,” Kathy Lueders, Starbase CEO and former NASA associate administrator for human spaceflight programs, said at a May 14 event in Harlingen, Texas, saying “they’re going through some last-minute transitions and dotting t.’
“We hope to have a license by the end of May, beginning of June,” she said. “The first day we get our license we’ll be flying.”
Much of her presentation to the local economic group focused on the development of the starbase itself, where SpaceX manufactures Starships and Super Heavy boosters. Lueders said more than 3,000 people, including SpaceX employees and contractors, work daily at the site, which is at the end of a two-lane highway near where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico.
“We’ve put billions into this area to get the facility ready,” she said. “It’s not easy to build at the end of Route 4.” A slide from her presentation said SpaceX has invested more than $3 billion in Starbase infrastructure since its symbolic groundbreaking in 2014 and currently spends $1.1 billion a year on Starbase and other facilities it has in Texas. She said an update on the economic impact report on the company’s activities for 2021 should be ready within the next few weeks.
The priority is to build a large manufacturing facility called the “Starfactory”, covering a million square feet and replacing the tents that were used to build the starship components. “Elon said a year ago, ‘You know what, we need to get rid of these tents and this is going to be a permanent place now,'” she recalled. “So we’re going to build a giga starship factory. She later said the company plans to have the factory completed by the end of the year.
SpaceX is building an office building to consolidate the engineering workforce at Starbase, she said, along with a second high bay. The company is also building a second orbital launch pad for Starship near the existing pad.
In addition to the Texas infrastructure, SpaceX is working on the Starship launch complex at Kennedy Space Center Complex 39A in Florida. The FAA announced on May 10 that it was beginning work on an environmental impact statement to address the updated Starship infrastructure there, while a concurrent Air Department effort is examining potential Starship launch facilities at two sites at the neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Musk suggested at the 2022 event that the Starbase would become an “advanced research and development site” for Starship work with Florida hosting operational launches, but Lueders said there would be opportunities for both Texas and Florida to support Starship missions.
“We need two launch areas to meet our manifesto,” she said, particularly starship launches for NASA’s Human Landing System program. “One landing will require 15 tanker launches and they need to be done within a certain period of time.” That estimate of 15 tanker launches is larger than what other company officials have previously reported, including an estimate of “ten” launches given in January.
“This is going to be our tough area,” she concluded, “but we’ll also need a base in Florida to do the number and sequence of missions.”
She said she is also working on other aspects of Starbase and its impact on the community, from the quality of life for employees to improving traffic on the only road that leads to the site. “It’s a critical phase for us right now,” she said, with discussions underway with local and state officials about topics such as traffic light timing on the road to Starbase and support for hotel and restaurant development on Brownsville’s east side. the part closest to the Starbase.
There were also discussions about later infrastructure improvements for the Starbase, she said, “so that we have a place to do business at the end of Highway 4 long term.”
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