SpaceX
SpaceX job posts confirm Starship’s Super Heavy booster will be built in Texas
A duo of SpaceX job postings at the company’s South Texas facilities have confirmed that both Starship and Super Heavy “flight article” vehicles will initially be fabricated and assembled on-site in Boca Chica, also implying that the rocket’s first orbital launch attempts will occur in the same vicinity.
Construction of the first massive Super Heavy booster could begin in Boca Chica within the next several months, presumably progressing in a similar fashion to Starship’s full-scale hopper prototype. According to CEO Elon Musk, Starhopper hop tests and Super Heavy construction could begin – respectively – as early as March and April 2019, perhaps just one or two months from now.
Where to build a giant rocket?
“Tank fabricators will work to build the primary airframe of the Starship and Super Heavy vehicles at the SpaceX South Texas build site. [They] will work with an elite team of other fabricators and technicians to rapidly build the tank (cylindrical structure), tank bulkheads, and other large associated structures for the flight article design of both vehicles.” – SpaceX, 02/15/19
Posted on February 15th, both open positions centered around structural assembly (i.e. welding) critical for the construction of the massive propellant tank domes, barrel sections, and other major structure of Starship and Super Heavy. Following an unanticipated pivot to stainless steel – rather than advanced carbon composites – as the primary structural material of choice for BFR, the project has been continually marked by a flurry of impressive technical progress at the same time as many previously foundational aspects became uncertain.
Most notably, SpaceX appeared to terminate a lease agreement it had held with the Port of Los Angeles for a large berth meant to be developed into a dedicated factory for BFR’s massive spaceship upper stage and booster, whose 9m (~30 foot) diameter would have been highly impractical to build somewhere that wasn’t either at the rocket’s launch site or directly adjacent to a port. With its headquarters in Hawthorne, CA (southwestern Los Angeles), SpaceX’s first choice was unsurprisingly the Port of LA, a location that would have allowed its 5000+ local employees to have seamlessly transferred to the BFR program without requiring highly disruptive relocations.
The source info is incorrect. Starship & Raptor development is being done out of our HQ in Hawthorne, CA. We are building the Starship prototypes locally at our launch site in Texas, as their size makes them very difficult to transport.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2019
Known as Berth 240, SpaceX’s lease began in March 2018 but was reportedly terminated in January 2019, likely meaning that the company will have to vacate the premises next month. While an official SpaceX statement and subsequent Elon Musk tweets relating to that report served to partially correct the record and confirm that “Starship prototypes” would be built locally in South Texas, Super Heavy was never mentioned. SpaceX’s latest job postings complete the image, indicating that all aspects of the first Starship and Super Heavy prototypes will be assembled in South Texas.
Weighing just shy of 4.5 million kilograms (~10M lbs) fully-fueled and standing around 118m (387 ft) tall with both stages stacked together, BFR is a beast of a launch vehicle and will require wholly new methods of production and assembly thanks to its sheer scale and the extensive integration of stainless steel alloys into its design. Compared to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which is by no means small, Super Heavy on its own could end up being 68m (224 ft) tall, just slightly shorter than a complete Falcon 9 with a booster, upper stage, and fairing (71m, 233 ft). Standing on its tripod fins, Starship stands around 55m (180 ft) tall, although all of these figures are liable to change, as they come from a September 2018 SpaceX presentation that occurred before Musk publicized the move to stainless steel.
Ask and you shall receive! Here's an image with the mighty #SaturnV compared to the @SpaceX's upcoming #Starship and #Superheavy stack! Really gives a sense of scale how truly massive the rocket will be! 🤯
This and many of my other renders are now also available at my shop! pic.twitter.com/qTscwzWyKF
— Kimi Talvitie (@kimitalvitie) January 12, 2019
Likely to remain unchanged is the diameter of Starship and Super Heavy: 9m (30 ft), roughly 2.5 times wider than Falcon 9’s booster and upper stage. Even more true for a 9m-diameter rocket also meant to rely on a partial implementation of stainless steel balloon tanks, transporting Starship and Super Heavy more than a few thousand feet horizontally is going to be an extraordinary challenge, although SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities are conveniently located just a mile or less from the Gulf of Mexico. While road transport is entirely out of the question, Saturn V’s massive first and second stage boosters proved to be relatively easy to transport thanks to the production facility being directly adjacent to a large body of water (or a river to get there, in their case).
“For all their prodigious bulk, [Saturn V’s 33.0 ft (10.1 m) diameter first and second stages] could be transported with comparative ease via seagoing barges [from Michoud, Louisiana to Cape Canaveral, Florida].” – Roger Bilstein/NASA, p. 301
Assuming SpaceX chooses to assemble Super Heavy with the same vertical, outdoors approach, Boca Chica, Texas is going to be greeted by a view even more exotic than the already-impressive progress being made with Starship’s Starhopper prototype. CEO Elon Musk noted that he believed the first Super Heavy prototype would begin to be built this spring (as early as April). In the meantime, SpaceX continues to exploit the benefits of stainless steel whenever it can, utilizing the company’s wealth of Hawthorne, CA expertise and infrastructure to fabricate subassemblies that can easily be shipped by road or plane to South Texas. After arrival, Boca Chica-based employees or contractors can be tasked with the considerably less infrastructure-intensive work of final assembly and integration, a challenging and critical process but one that is at least slightly more setting-agnostic.
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- Local representatives were given tours of SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities and work earlier this week. (Alex Dominguez – 02/10/19)
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- (Bobby Guerra – 02/11/19)
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- Aerospace-grade bubble wrap! (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)
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- Much like Falcon 9, Starhopper has begun to be outfitted with plumbing necessary to pressurize and fill its propellant tanks, among other things. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)
SpaceX’s propulsion team continues to test the first full-scale Raptor engine a few hundred miles north of Boca Chica while Starhopper is gradually outfitted with a range of avionics, wiring, and plumbing needed for the vehicle’s hop test debut. That could come as early as March, according to Musk, although further delays should come as no surprise.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Version 3 booster crumples in early testing
Photos of the incident’s aftermath suggest that Booster 18 will likely be retired.
SpaceX’s new Starship first-stage booster, Booster 18, suffered major damage early Friday during its first round of testing in Starbase, Texas, just one day after rolling out of the factory.
Based on videos of the incident, the lower section of the rocket booster appeared to crumple during a pressurization test. Photos of the incident’s aftermath suggest that Booster 18 will likely be retired.
Booster test failure
SpaceX began structural and propellant-system verification tests on Booster 18 Thursday night at the Massey’s Test Site, only a few miles from Starbase’s production facilities, as noted in an Ars Technica report. At 4:04 a.m. CT on Friday, a livestream from LabPadre Space captured the booster’s lower half experiencing a sudden destructive event around its liquid oxygen tank section. Post-incident images, shared on X by @StarshipGazer, showed notable deformation in the booster’s lower structure.
Neither SpaceX nor Elon Musk had commented as of Friday morning, but the vehicle’s condition suggests it is likely a complete loss. This is quite unfortunate, as Booster 18 is already part of the Starship V3 program, which includes design fixes and upgrades intended to improve reliability. While SpaceX maintains a rather rapid Starship production line in Starbase, Booster 18 was generally expected to validate the improvements implemented in the V3 program.
Tight deadlines
SpaceX needs Starship boosters and upper stages to begin demonstrating rapid reuse, tower catches, and early operational Starlink missions over the next two years. More critically, NASA’s Artemis program depends on an on-orbit refueling test in the second half of 2026, a requirement for the vehicle’s expected crewed lunar landing around 2028.
While SpaceX is known for diagnosing failures quickly and returning to testing at unmatched speed, losing the newest-generation booster at the very start of its campaign highlights the immense challenge involved in scaling Starship into a reliable, high-cadence launch system. SpaceX, however, is known for getting things done quickly, so it would not be a surprise if the company manages to figure out what happened to Booster 18 in the near future.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next project will produce Starships at a level that sounds impossible
1,000 rockets per year is an insane number, especially considering Starship’s sheer size.
Elon Musk has revealed bold plans for SpaceX’s newest Starbase facility in Texas, predicting it will become a birthplace for “so many spaceships.” The upcoming “Gigabay,” a massive $250 million production hub in Starbase, Texas, is designed to manufacture up to 1,000 Starship rockets per year.
That’s an insane number of rockets for a single facility, especially considering Starship’s sheer size.
One of the world’s largest industrial structures
SpaceX’s Gigabay is expected to stand roughly 380 feet tall and enclose 46.5 million cubic feet of interior space, making it one of the largest industrial structures to date. The facility will feature 24 dedicated work cells for assembling and refurbishing Starship and Super Heavy vehicles, complete with heavy-duty cranes capable of lifting up to 400 U.S. tons, as noted in a Times of India report.
Construction crews have already placed four tower cranes on-site, with completion targeted for December 2026. Once operational, the Gigabay is expected to boost SpaceX’s launch cadence dramatically, as it would be able to build up to 1,000 reusable Starships per year, as noted in a report from the Dallas Express. Musk stated that the Gigabay will be “one of the biggest structures in the world” and hinted that it represents a major leap in Starbase’s evolution from test site to full-scale production hub.
A key step toward Mars and beyond
Starship is SpaceX’s heavy-lift rocket system, and it remains a key part of Elon Musk’s vision of a multiplanetary future. The vehicle can carry 100–150 tonnes to low Earth orbit and up to 250 tonnes in expendable mode. With several successful flights to date, including a perfect 11th test flight, the Starship program continues to refine its reusable launch system ahead of crewed lunar missions under NASA’s Artemis initiative.
Starship is unlike any other spacecraft that has been produced in the past. As per Elon Musk, Starship is a “planet-colonizer” class rocket, as the magnitude of such a task “makes other space transport task trivial.” Considering Starship’s capabilities, it could indeed become the spacecraft that makes a Moon or Mars base feasible.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck fleet takes over at SpaceX’s Starbase
Interestingly, the Cybertruck uses the same exterior, a stainless steel alloy, as SpaceX rockets. This synergy between the two companies and their very different products shows a very unified mentality between Musk companies.
Tesla Cybertrucks have taken over at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas, as hundreds of the all-electric pickup trucks were spotted late last week rounding out a massive fleet of vehicles.
The Cybertruck fleet is geared toward replacing gas vehicles that are used at Starbase for everyday operations. The only surprise about this is that it was not done sooner:
Was just visiting. pic.twitter.com/5Q9wPPaeuH
— Derek Li (@derek1ee) October 31, 2025
Deliveries have been going on for a few weeks, as Cybertrucks have made their way across the state of Texas from Austin to Starbase so they could be included in SpaceX’s fleet of vehicles at the facility.
Interestingly, the Cybertruck uses the same exterior, a stainless steel alloy, as SpaceX rockets. This synergy between the two companies and their very different products shows a very unified mentality between Musk companies.
However, there are some other perspectives to consider as SpaceX is utilizing such a massive fleet of Cybertrucks. Some media outlets (unsurprisingly) are seeing this as a move of weakness by both Tesla and SpaceX, as the aerospace company is, in a sense, “bailing out” lagging sales for the all-electric pickup.
It’s no secret that Tesla has struggled with the Cybertruck this year, and deliveries have been underwhelming in the sense that the company was anticipating between 1 million and 2 million orders for the vehicle before it was widely produced.
A lot of things changed with the Cybertruck between its 2019 unveiling and 2023 initial deliveries, most notably, price.
The price of the Cybertruck swelled significantly and priced out many of those who had pre-ordered it. Some have weighed the option of whether this purchase was a way to get rid of sitting inventory.
However, it seems more logical to consider the fact that SpaceX was likely always going to transition to Teslas for its fleet, especially at Starship, at some point.
It doesn’t seem out of the question that one Musk company would utilize another Musk company’s products, especially considering the Cybertruck has been teased as the vehicle that would be present on Mars.
SpaceX Starship Version 3 booster crumples in early testing
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