SpaceX Unveils $100 Billion Starbase Louisiana Launch Site

SpaceX and Louisiana officials announced on Tuesday, Aug. 25, a $100 billion investment in the state's Vermilion Parish to build "Starbase Louisiana," a new manufacturing and launch complex for SpaceX's Starship rocket. It will be one of the biggest projects in Louisiana's history and the company's largest center for spaceflight operations.

Once complete, the site will have five complexes, each with two Starship launch towers, for 10 launch pads in all, each with its own propellant farm producing fuel onsite. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company is building a self-sustaining spaceport with its own propellant production, power generation, deep-water shipping, vehicle processing and, probably, an airport, using Louisiana's natural gas to fuel the rockets.

SpaceX and Louisiana officials say the site will eventually support thousands of launches a year. CEO Elon Musk has estimated Starship could fly more than 30 times a day by 2030, over 10,000 flights annually. Starship, SpaceX's fully reusable next-generation rocket, is still under development; the company is preparing for its 14th test flight in September.

NASA has contracted SpaceX to build a lunar-lander version of Starship for its Artemis Moon program. Artemis III, targeted for mid-2027, will send NASA's Orion spacecraft to practice docking with a Starship test vehicle in Earth orbit, ahead of the program's first Moon landing on Artemis IV in 2028. That mission's Starship may need up to a dozen refueling flights from "tanker" Starships.

The new pads will also launch SpaceX's next-generation Starlink satellites, replacing the Falcon 9 rocket, which has flown more than 300 Starlink missions and delivered over 11,000 satellites to orbit; SpaceX plans to retire Falcon 9 once Starship is fully operational. Construction on Starbase Louisiana is expected to begin in 2027, with the first launch targeted for 2029.