Starship launch pad under construction at space center

SpaceX has begun construction on an orbital launch pad for its next-generation Starship at Kennedy Space Center, bringing to the Space Coast the world’s most powerful spacecraft that CEO Elon Musk hopes will eventually take people to Mars.

Musk made the announcement Friday on his Twitter account and confirmed the company will still be using Launch Complex 39A at KSC, where it currently launches Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.

“Construction of Starship orbital launch pad at the Cape has begun,” Musk wrote. “39A is hallowed spaceflight ground — no place more deserving of a Starship launch pad!”

It’s unclear how the company will juggle launch operations at KSC, although it also operates launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The space center is the launching point for Falcon 9 missions with Crew Dragon for shuttling astronauts to the International Space Station and, to date, the only pad that has supported the massive Falcon Heavy launches.

The company has envisioned building Starship launch pads offshore, but Musk in the past has said SpaceX will continue to consider Kennedy Space Center in addition to the launch pad at its Boca Chica, Texas, spaceport. Musk said KSC will get similar but improved ground systems and a tower to what the company has set up in Texas.

Space Florida executive Dale Ketcham said SpaceX had always considered Florida to be a key operations site for Starship. He said development of a Starship launch site at the Space Coast has been in the works since 2019.

“As the program has evolved, SpaceX chose to focus initially on Boca Chica in Texas, but that was understandable and now the program is again turning its attention to the Cape,” he said. “SpaceX will choose where they launch different missions based upon profitability, as they should.

“But we are excited that Florida will compete and win for many of those launches to the moon, Mars, or for money.”

The company has been testing out prototype versions of the massive rocket from its Texas facility, with plans for an initial orbital test launch as early as January, Musk said. Previous prototype launches have only flown to altitudes of about 6 miles, with several test prototypes exploding while attempting to land.

Those flights only used three or fewer of the new, powerful Raptor engines. The fully working orbital version will be coupled with a Super Heavy booster with 37 Raptor engines.

That hardware will be capable of more than 16 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, far outpacing what NASA’s Saturn V rockets used during the Apollo missions, and nearly double the thrust expected from NASA’s new Space Launch System.

The Starship design is meant to be used for both suborbital point-to-point flights on Earth and for deep-space missions such as to the moon and Mars. The full version will have a 100-passenger capacity. When paired with the Super Heavy booster, it will stand at 394 feet.

Musk stated last month at a virtual meeting organized by the National Academy of Sciences that he does not expect the initial test flight to be successful, but plans to have about a dozen test flights in 2022, which would pave the way for operational flights for non-human cargo beginning in 2023.

The company has a contract with NASA to build a version of Starship to take astronauts on Artemis missions from their Orion capsule to the lunar surface. That mission is likely to come no earlier than 2025, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

For the first test, Musk said both the stainless steel prototype and its Super Heavy booster are set with the company awaiting approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, which he expects before the end of the year.

Musk said the company looks to build as many as 1,000 Starships to make life interplanetary on the moon and Mars someday.

COURTESY SpaceX performed a test of one of its Raptor vacuum engines on a Starship prototype at its Boca Chica, Texas, facility on Oct. 21.