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SpaceX job posts confirm Starship’s Super Heavy booster will be built in Texas

A rough visualization of the size of Starhopper, Starship, and Super Heavy and SpaceX's Boca Chica build facilities. (Austin Barnard, Teslarati)

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6 years ago

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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.

An overview of BFR’s booster and spaceship, now known as Super Heavy and Starship. (SpaceX)

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.

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.

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.

 

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.

Check out Teslarati’s newsletters for prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket launch and recovery processes!

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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SpaceX and Elon Musk explain potential reasons for Starship loss

Published

2 months ago

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January 17, 2025

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk are starting to shed some light on the potential reasoning for the loss of Starship yesterday, which was lost after a successful launch and catch of the lower-stage booster.

Starship was lost during its ascension, and debris rained down over the Caribbean less than an hour after SpaceX lost all communication with the spacecraft.

A few hours after the launch was over, SpaceX started to shed some light after looking at preliminary data that the rocket left behind.

The company said that a fire developed in the aft section of Starship:

“Following stage separation, the Starship upper stage successfully lit all six Raptor engines and performed its ascent burn to space. Prior to the burn’s completion, telemetry was lost with the vehicle after approximately eight and a half minutes of flight. Initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship, leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly with debris falling into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas.”

Additionally, Musk said that there was some sort of oxygen or fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall.

The leak was evidently large enough to build more pressure than the vent was able to handle:

Some also seemed to recognize evidence of fires throughout the flight of Starship, which is obviously an anomaly:

There will be more information regarding the loss of Starship in the coming days and weeks, but Musk already believes that a bit of fire suppression and more volume in the cavity above the ship engine firewall could fix the issue.

“Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month,” he said, so Flight 8 could happen sometime in February.

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Please email me with questions and comments at joey@teslarati.com. I’d love to chat! You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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SpaceX completes second catch of lower stage, but loses Starship

Published

2 months ago

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January 16, 2025

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX completed its seventh launch of Starship on Thursday, accomplishing a clean liftoff and catch of the first-stage booster. However, the upper stage was lost after its ascent.

The launch took place just a few minutes after 5 p.m. on the East Coast, as the first attempts at getting Starship in the air for the seventh time were delayed by weather both last week and this week.

Conditions were favorable on Thursday as SpaceX looked to follow up a successful campaign by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s company, earlier today.

SpaceX went into the seventh Starship launch with plans for a catch attempt of the first-stage booster, something it attempted and completed during the fifth test launch last year. It decided to skip a catch attempt with the sixth test flight as conditions were not aligned.

For now, SpaceX is extremely selective as to when it attempts catches.

However, it was successful during this attempt, its second completed catch:

This flight differed from previous launches as SpaceX rolled out several improvements to the rocket and the processes as it featured plans to do a Starlink deployment simulation and had various adjustments to flap placement and avionics.

These plans were disrupted by the fact that SpaceX lost all communications with Starship about ten minutes into the flight, which the aerospace company confirmed was a result of losing the spacecraft sometime during its ascent.

Although the catch was successful, the loss of the actual rocket seemed to be a huge damper on the entire event. SpaceX confirmed several minutes after the loss of communications that the rocket was destroyed and was lost.

It was its first failure since the second Starship launch in November 2023. SpaceX had no answers for why the rocket was destroyed and lost.

We will keep you updated in the coming days.

Need accessories for your Tesla? Check out the Teslarati Marketplace:

Please email me with questions and comments at joey@teslarati.com. I’d love to chat! You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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SpaceX confirms next Starship launch target – Here’s when it will take off

Published

2 months ago

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January 9, 2025

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spacex starship upper stage catch
Credit: Elon Musk | X

SpaceX has confirmed a new target date for the seventh Starship test launch after weather in Texas delayed the first scheduled date for “three or four days.”

The company is now targeting the launch for Monday, January 13, at 4 p.m. CST or 5 p.m. EST. The launch date is not set in stone as any variety of delays could impact this, but SpaceX hopes to finally take off after a delay that pushed it back from January 10.

What’s new with this Starship launch

With this being the seventh test launch of Starship, there are several things that the company will change and hope to accomplish. All of these launches are done in preparation for eventually taking flight to Mars, something that will happen next year, according to CEO Elon Musk.

First, SpaceX is rolling out a next-generation ship with “significant upgrades.” Forward flaps have been made smaller and are repositioned away from the heat shield, which will “reduce their exposure to reentry heating.”

SpaceX eyes 25 annual Starship launches starting next year

There is also a 25 percent increase in propellant volume, a new fuel feedline system for the Raptor vacuum engines, and a better-than-ever propulsion avionics module that will control the valves and reading sensors.

Avionics, as a whole, underwent a redesign and now have more capability and redundancy for missions as they become more complex.

Starlink test

SpaceX is also planning to deploy 10 Starlink simulators that are similar in size and weight to the next-generation Starlink satellites:

“While in space, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.”

Ship return and catch

There will be several experiments that have to do with returning Starship and various catch scenarios and sequences. One of which will see “a significant number of tiles be removed to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle.”

The ship’s reentry profile was also intentionally designed to test the structural limits of the flaps while at the point of maximum dynamic pressure during reentry.

Currently, SpaceX did not detail whether it would attempt another catch during this test launch. These are usually game-time decisions.

Need accessories for your Tesla? Check out the Teslarati Marketplace:

Please email me with questions and comments at joey@teslarati.com. I’d love to chat! You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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