SpaceX will build the world's largest spaceport for "thousands of Starship launches"

Elon Musk’s space company, SpaceX, plans to build a new $100 billion Starbase launch complex in Louisiana, according to the state’s economic development agency. The site will “facilitate thousands of launches annually.” Following the announcement, SpaceX shares rose 2.2%.

Starbase will become the main launch site for Starship—a heavy reusable rocket being developed by SpaceX, according to CNBC. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027, and the first Starship launches are planned for 2029.

"We are preparing to build a spaceport that until now has only existed in science fiction," said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. According to him, Starbase will be capable of launching 30 Starship missions per day.

The spaceport will be the largest in the world, according to MarketWatch. It will feature five launch complexes, each with two launch pads. In addition, the site will house rocket fuel storage facilities, a rocket fuel production plant, employee housing, and other infrastructure. In a video posted on the SpaceX website on Tuesday, the company reported that the search for such a site took about seven years.

Musk intends to significantly expand the Starlink satellite network, launch orbital data centers, and eventually colonize Mars. The realization of these plans—as well as the validity of SpaceX’s market capitalization of nearly $2 trillion—depends largely on the success of Starship, notes CNBC.

SpaceX plans to launch its first AI satellites powered by Nvidia chips—which will become part of an orbital data center—in the fourth quarter of next year, and the project will reach “significant scale” in 2028, Musk said yesterday on the social media platform X. According to him, each rack based on Nvidia processors will be placed in low Earth orbit as a satellite. In January, the company filed an application with the regulator seeking permission to launch a network of up to 1 million satellites to perform complex AI computations. All of these satellites will be launched into orbit by the Starship rocket.

Ahead of its IPO, SpaceX had stated that it planned to launch these spacecraft in 2028, but Musk has accelerated the timeline, according to Bloomberg.

The updated launch dates for orbital data centers are good news for SpaceX investors, according to Yahoo Finance. The publication notes that the company made the development of space data centers one of the key elements of its record-breaking IPO. The successful deployment of Starship could significantly reduce the cost of space launches and increase their payload capacity. This is one of the most important factors capable of supporting the company’s long-term valuation and opening up new business opportunities, including the deployment of orbital data centers for AI, Barron’s wrote on the eve of the previous Starship test.

Wall Street assumes that SpaceX will achieve these goals much later, but remains very optimistic about the company’s prospects. “Starting in 2029, we expect SpaceX to develop orbital computing capacity that will reach approximately 75 gigawatts by the end of 2031, at a much lower cost than would be possible on Earth,” — Yahoo Finance quotes a note from JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth. — “We believe there remains significant growth potential as the company is literally breaking new ground.”

Musk is known for frequently setting very ambitious deadlines that he subsequently fails to meet, Yahoo Finance notes. The publication points out that the launch dates for the Tesla Cybertruck pickup and the Tesla Semi truck have been postponed, and the next-generation Tesla Roadster has yet to be released.

Another key challenge for the large-scale deployment of orbital data centers is how SpaceX will launch payloads into space. Starship, on which so much hope is pinned, is still in the testing phase.

Although the launch vehicle has already completed a successful test launch and deployed some Starlink satellites, it has not yet reached the high orbit required for certain satellite missions. In addition, so far only the rocket’s first stage—the booster—has managed to return safely to the launch site. On August 20, Musk warned of delays in a key Starship test operation. This refers to the post-launch recovery and return to the launch site of the upper stage—that is, the Starship spacecraft.

Furthermore, while the site in Louisiana will help SpaceX move closer to its goal of making Starship suitable for frequent reusable launches, the new construction project will also increase the company’s already high projected capital expenditures, notes MarketWatch. According to FactSet, even before the announcement of the investment in the new spaceport, SpaceX’s expenses were expected to total $58 billion by the end of 2026 and $132 billion in 2027.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor