SpaceX built a Starfactory at Starbase in South Texas to produce one Starship per day and has constructed one launch pad while preparing a second. Starship stands over 400 feet tall and can hold more than a million gallons of liquid methane and liquid oxygen, with large quantities of liquid nitrogen used to chill and purge propellant systems. The FAA has approved up to 25 Starship launches per year from South Texas, with requests for up to 120 per year from Florida. Achieving high cadence faces bottlenecks including logistics: more than 200 tanker trucks are needed per launch, creating inefficiency, emissions, and roadway congestion.
First, there's the sprawling factory that SpaceX has constructed at its Starbase location along the Gulf Coast in South Texas. The building, known as Starfactory, is designed to produce one Starship per day. A couple of miles to the east, SpaceX has built one Starship launch pad and is preparing to activate a second one. With Starship, SpaceX seeks to buck the old way of doing things.
There are innumerable bottlenecks to achieving such a fast launch cadence. One of them is simply a matter of logistics. It takes more than 200 tanker trucks traveling from distant refineries to deliver all of the methane, liquid oxygen, and liquid nitrogen for a Starship launch. SpaceX officials recognize this is not an efficient means of conveying these commodities to the launch pad. It takes time, emits pollution, and clogs roadways.
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