On March 3rd, SpaceX announced plans to build a 380-foot-tall stacking facility on Merritt Island in order to build their new Mars-bound Starship rocket.
The facility, nicknamed the “Gigabay” after SpaceX’s facilities in Texas, “Highbay” and “Megabay”, will mainly be used to stack both halves of Starship, which will then be fully assembled on the launch pad.
Since first reaching orbit in 2008, SpaceX has continued to push the boundaries of space technology. In 2015, the company successfully landed an orbital rocket booster, the first time anyone had done so. In 2020, SpaceX successfully launched astronauts to the International Space Station, becoming the first private company to do so and finally ending America’s dependence on Russia to get astronauts to space.
Now, SpaceX aims higher. The company’s next rocket is planned to be fully reusable, a feat never before achieved in spaceflight. Assuming they accomplish it, Starship will significantly lower the cost of putting large objects into space, enabling a new era of space construction and exploration.
Photo by SpaceX.
While Starship has been developed and launched almost entirely out of the Southern tip of Texas, that is soon planned to change.
For years now SpaceX has been preparing a launch complex on the Space Coast for Starship. Most notably, through 2022, the company built a copy of the now-iconic Mechazilla catch tower just to the right of the existing launch pad.
Photo by Ashton Guitard.
Progress is happening fast. In an update released on their website, SpaceX confirmed “Work on this Gigabay has already begun, and the facility is targeted for completion by the end of 2026”. It went on to say “As we work to complete the Gigabay in Florida, we are also designing and planning for a co-located manufacturing facility, similar to the Starfactory in Texas, to enable production of Starships in Florida”.
Photo by SpaceX.
As SpaceX’s operations continue to grow, it is likely that the rate of Starship flights, or cadence, will continue to grow as well. “[The National Space Society] anticipates that the flight cadence for Starship will greatly exceed that of the Falcon 9,” said NSS spokesman Rod Pyle. He continued, “having redundancy for such a critical launch system would make sense from an operational standpoint”.
Indeed, redundancy is exactly what Starship needs. During the same post on its website, SpaceX confirmed it is making preparations to build a second Starship launch facility at a neighboring pad, Launch Complex 37.
SpaceX has had a busy few years. From building and testing of the first fully reusable rocket, to Elon Musk’s new position in the White House, it is safe to say things have never been more dynamic at SpaceX. However, the company’s goal, or more specifically Elon’s goal, has never shifted: Mars.
The constant throughout the chaos has been Musk’s pursuit of the colonization of Mars. Starship is the centerpiece of that plan – a vehicle capable of cheaply transporting many tons of cargo, as well as crew, to the surface of the Red Planet.
It seems that the next step in Starship’s journey will be to treat Central Floridians to the same awe-inspiring views and thunderous sonic booms that have so far only been enjoyed by the residents of South Texas.