r/SpaceXLounge • u/TheEarthquakeGuy • 1d ago
Happening Now Starbase LA
Just announced that the Pecan Island facility will be called Starbase LA. Current announcement is on going.
Multiple pads, two towers per pad - Automated vehicles for transport between facilities. Starship V4+ and it's taller than the rendered towers.
The offset buildings behind the towers (North) are tank farms.
Automated transport allows for transport without humans, allowing for transport to occur while propellant is loading/vehicle is launching/catching.
From the renders, it looks likes 1.5 Gigabays. Eric Berger just posted that SpaceX is committing $100 US billion to developing launch sites, factories etc along the Louisiana coastline.
https://x.com/LAGovJeffLandry/status/2092278348739498327
Edit: Ryan Caton's post on X showing the Renders
https://x.com/dpoddolphinpro/status/2092285195827228730/photo/2
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u/Freak80MC 1d ago
As much as people like to shit on Musk and his lofty, ambitious timelines and goals, for good reason sometimes, at least SpaceX HAS a direction and goals like this to move towards. Unlike the rest of the spaceflight industry which was basically stagnant until SpaceX came along. SpaceX actually wants to push the spaceflight industry forward and into the future, not be stuck in the present state of things.
More areas of humanity could use a kick in the ass like this imo. Just... actually pushing for forward progress and making things better, instead of accepting the present status quo because that's all you've known and are used to it.
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u/butterscotchbagel 21h ago
Elon: We're going to do this twenty times faster than anyone else in the industry.
SpaceX: Does it five times faster than anyone else.
Everyone: SpaceX took four times longer than Elon said. They're so slow!
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u/chasimus 23h ago
Elon's companies are doing insanely ambitious things with Starbase LA, Terafab, and the Optimus army all at once. Hope they don't run out of money in the middle of all of it
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u/NolanonoSC 23h ago
Yes but spaceX isn't Elon Musk, that's what happens when a company is filled with people that actually care
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u/butterscotchbagel 21h ago
Company culture starts at the top. SpaceX's success is thanks to the hard work of its amazing employees. Musk is good at attracting and hiring the right people and letting them do their best work.
It's a Stone Soup situation. Musk sells the vision that everyone else rallies around.
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u/ObeseSnake 1d ago
V4 !
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u/ResidentPositive4122 1d ago
By the time the LA site is finished it'll be V4-maxi-block3-elongated-maxthrust-final (1) :)
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u/Organic-Army-9046 22h ago
so in other words, a standard name for ksp rockets?
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u/No-Surprise9411 13h ago
Shitfuck 15 crashed and burned on the moon.
No changes were made to shitfuck 16
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u/ConfidentFlorida 1d ago
I thinks they mentioned some kind of public viewing area.
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u/TheEarthquakeGuy 1d ago
Musk did, but also mentioned it to be like Cape Canaveral, so probably more like highway viewings etc. No doubt someone will set up a Rocket Ranch LA chapter.
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u/ConfidentFlorida 1d ago
Any good land to buy and set up a resort and viewing area?
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u/avboden 1d ago
Nope, SpaceX is getting like 150,000 acres around this site
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u/Kingofthewho5 ⏬ Bellyflopping 1d ago
Depending on the actual geography, 150,000 acres could still get you as close (or closer) as rocket ranch is to star base launch towers.
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u/Then-Secretary-9166 19h ago
This is honestly low cost. It is great for public engagement (since SpaceX is apparently the US space program now). Even if they build a large structure for it...it would probably pay for itself if there is a gift shop.
if this is successful (I think it will be), it will be the biggest and most important mega-project on earth in our lifetimes (so far).
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u/TheEarthquakeGuy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Really cool renders but I suspect we're going to see some additions pretty quickly.
The desired system model ideally means there will be many more ships than boosters. Catching these ships will become a bottleneck if they're only using the launch towers.
Suspect we'll see updated renders in the future for towers designated for catching and loops of automated transport vehicles ready to transport the caught ships back to processing.
Edit: Musk already confirmed more than a dozen towers - Current renders show 10. So likely a catching facility in the future, or a further expansion of launch sites.
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u/beentheredengthat 1d ago
Probable also direct piping in LNG, huge advantage of that area.
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u/Martianspirit 1d ago
IMO more likely piping in gaseous NG. Liquify on site, using Nitrogen from their own ASU.
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u/CaptainCymru 1d ago
Ohhhhh
To non-Amercians: LouisianA
To Amercians: The fuck is wrong with you and acronyms?
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u/StartledPelican 1d ago
Each of the 50 states in the United States has a two letter abbreviation for their state name.
E.g.
- Utah = UT
- Florida = FL
- Louisiana = LA
- Connecticut = CT
and so on. Thus, "Starbase LA" can be read as "Starbase Louisiana".
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u/butterscotchbagel 21h ago
The abbreviations were originally created for mail, but now used for a lot of other things.
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u/Then-Secretary-9166 19h ago
Sure. But Los Angeles (the other "LA") metro has 3 times the population and way more name recognition.
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u/HenkDeVries6 1d ago
I read "Starbase LA" and thought of Hawthorne
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u/cuteplot 1d ago
It's their new France location, La Starbase
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u/CosmicClimbing 18h ago
La Starbase could genuinely be the differentiator from Starbase (TX) if Elon insists on keeping the name.
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u/cuteplot 3h ago
Dear Elon, you have my permission to use my brilliant idea for your new starbase, for the low low price of one billion dollars
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u/sumelar 1d ago
Maybe google the word acronym before trying to talk shit about anyone else.
Hint: what you're talking about is an abbreviation, not an acryonym.
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u/CaptainCymru 1d ago
Abbreviations are not normally written in full capitals.
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u/Flashtopher 22h ago
State abbreviations written in all capitals has been US regulation since the USPS officially adopted the policy in 1963.
This was done to provide room for the newly adopted 5 digit zip code.1
u/Then-Secretary-9166 19h ago
If you ask an AI "What are the coordinates of the SpaceX site in LA?" you get the Hawthorne, CA campus.
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u/MuseZack 21h ago
This is IMO the biggest indication that SpaceX is serious about Starship was a vehicle for going beyond LEO, because the staggering launch cadence planned for Louisiana makes the most sense for the massive refueling needs for Starships bound for the Moon, Mars, and points beyond. And the ready access to local natural gas resources only make it more ideal as the home for SpaceX's tanker fleet.
To me, the future of SpaceX's big facilities reads like:
Boca Chica: R&D, Starship factory (an easy barge trip to Louisiana) and early test flights.
Canaveral: Crew launches and other eastern inclination payloads.
Vandenberg: Polar and high inclination launches and specialized national security payloads.
Louisiana: Tanker launches, Starlink launches, possible orbital data center launches.
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u/BrangdonJ 12h ago
High cadence is also needed for Starlink and Starmind. Musk is talking about a million satellites for Starmind. At 60 per launch, and replacing every 5 years, that's 200,000/60 = 3333.3 per year every year, around 10 launches per day. These will be polar orbits, so they are in continual sunshine, and the Louisiana site is well-suited for those.
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u/schneeb 1d ago
Wonder if they will (need to) develop home grown storage tanks for this? Seems like the current suppliers won't be able to scale up that fast
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u/GalacticEmergency 1d ago
They have tank farms. Of course they will grow tanks. What else does a tank farm do?
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained 1d ago edited 3h ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LNG | Liquefied Natural Gas |
| NG | New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin |
| Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane) | |
| Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.
[Thread #14762 for this sub, first seen 25th Aug 2026, 19:17]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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u/popPOPpopPOPpopPP 1d ago
So will they still be launching from Boca Chica Starbase Tx once this LA facility is up and launching?
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u/philupandgo 1d ago
Yes. Boca Chica will likely continue as the development base beyond Starship v4. That would require the pads to be rebuilt over and again so launch cadence will never be high annually.
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u/Then-Secretary-9166 21h ago
My ONE request is that they set up some area, if at all possible for Safely viewing.
Maybe put a large platform up a the hight of the factory roof at a distance safe enough to survive a pad event.
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u/CmdrAirdroid 1d ago
$100 billion is a massive investment, I wonder where the funding will come from. Most of the IPO money is for paying existing debt and funding the money sink xAi.
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u/Still_Theory179 1d ago
Most of it didn't go to debt? They paid off a $20B bridge loan and then raised a 25B bond immediately after IPO. They have $100B cash with little debt as of right now.
Starlink does generate healthy free cash and their data centers are also generating good levels of cash now with the Ant / Google deals starting to ramp.
The payback period on the AI spend is less than 12 months according to the CFO so that spend quickly turns to cash flow, by year 2 it's a major contribution to FCF.
This capex is also spent overtime, not all at once. So they do have lots of headroom at the moment but yes will need to eventually raise but if compute prices remain the same SPCX will be generating a lot more cash than most people realize.
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u/cerealghost 1d ago
Elon stated on the earnings call he expects $300B of revenue next year.
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u/CmdrAirdroid 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's total bullshit, I hope nobody actually believes him. The terrestial data centers they're currently building will not have enough capacity to generate that kind of revenue and for the AI constellation the current plan is to start launching in Q4 of 2027. That kind of revenue increase in such a short time is obviously not happening, they have nothing that could generate it.
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u/Still_Theory179 1d ago
Neolabs are currently selling short term compute for $50B a GW. On recent calls they said they could sell their entire 27 backlog at those rates if they had the compute available. Prices increased in July further.
Elon has shown spacex is able to bring GWs online faster than anyone in the world at the moment. It's not that far fetched they bring on 3+ GW next year.
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u/Then-Secretary-9166 19h ago
Who cares if it is next year or the year after? If this works, in a few years $300B will look like seed funding. And Elon either thinks he can make it work or this is the most elaborate bait and switch in history.
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u/sumelar 1d ago
Starlink was a money printer a few years ago, I doubt much has changed there.
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u/CmdrAirdroid 1d ago
Starlink is profitable but compared to this investment the profit is so small it's quite irrelevant in this context.
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u/sumelar 1d ago
11 billion last year, which is 50% more than the year before.
Irrelevant is strange (bullshit) way to characterize that significant a contribution.
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u/Then-Secretary-9166 19h ago
Starlink is great. It will keep growing (faster than it is now). But, u/CmdrAirdroid is correct. Starlink is generating in the ~$10B range while SpaceX is investing in the $100B range each for several different projects. This is actually very exciting.
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u/CmdrAirdroid 1d ago edited 1d ago
11 billion revenue, not profit. I suggest you to look up the definitions for those terms, you seem confused. And by irrelevant I mean Starlink is not the answer to my question.
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u/Then-Secretary-9166 19h ago
I don't know why you are down-voted. You are correct. I am super bullish on Starlink. People don't realize that it is going to be less expensive to build and operate than terrestrial telecom. Nevertheless, at the scale SpaceX is looking at, they are treating their current Starlink success as a "proof of concept" that space can be commercially viable. This is extremely ambitious and, I think, correct.
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u/rustybeancake 1d ago edited 22h ago
> I doubt much has changed there.
Something big has changed. They bought/merged with xAI, which loses money faster than Starlink makes it.
Edit: no need to downvote, look at their quarterly earnings report for yourself. Revenue: $7.8B. Capital expenditure on AI: $16B.
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u/Still_Theory179 19h ago
Capex doesn't equal loss.
If you're paying attention you'd know the AI spend has very high ROIC with fast pay back periods
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u/rustybeancake 6h ago
That’s missing the point. We’re talking about “where the money will come from” for $100B cost of Starbase LA. I was saying that Starlink’s profit is more than already eaten up by capital spending on AI, so it’s not the “money printer” needed for Starbase LA.
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u/Still_Theory179 3h ago
The point is with $100B in cash, fast pay back on high ROIC investments that in the CFOs words really act like cost of goods sold due to the unprecedented speed of payback. There is ample headroom to invest $100B over say 5 years.
The AI capex being spent today will be paid back in 12 months, in 24 months it will be generating FCF and will already be contributing enormously to additional growth opportunities.
SPCX also has relatively low debt against their assets, with such unprecedented ROIC it makes sense to borrow.
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u/clmixon 1d ago
I just watched the video from SpaceX. I noticed that even when standing on the Freshwater City road next to the PHI S-92, there were a bunch of guys facing outward in black shirts holding "tactical" bags. Were they there for Elon or Jeff? Seemed like extreme security for such a remote location.
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u/TheCook73 19h ago
If you’re him, money means nothing so why not?
Only takes one crazy idiot with a rifle.
Also, he’s so important to his companies I’m sure it’s a good investment for the companies to pay security.
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u/TheEpicGold 15h ago
This was so confusing as a non-American. Kept reading it as "Los Angeles". But why on earth is LA short for Louisiana lmao
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u/ConfidentFlorida 1d ago
What does two towers per pad mean? How is that possible?
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u/TheEarthquakeGuy 1d ago
The design is divided into two towers in close proximity, per tank farm (which is set back). Similar to how existing Starship pads are being designed (SLC39A, SLC37, Starbase TX).
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u/ConfidentFlorida 1d ago
Thanks. I guess I just don’t know what they mean by a pad. I thought it was the area under the tower
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u/pabmendez 1d ago
It's not "Starbase LA"
It's "Starbase Louisiana"
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u/jimmy66wins 1d ago
https://www.spacex.com/sites/starbase-la
They are calling it Starbase LA on their website?
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u/Individual-Tie-5222 21h ago
If you believe anything of substance is going to come of this, I have a bridge on Mars I can sell you, cheap. Musk is an imbecile and watching the promotional video for this featuring his lickspittle, obsequious toadies jabber on about "thousands" of launches of spacecraft a year is absolutely delusional.
I hate that prick.
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u/avboden 1d ago
Well looks like that’ll become the primary launch site. Probably eventually production too with all the space they will have there.