Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX will build its largest launch site yet, a $100bn (£73bn) facility in the southern US state of Louisiana. Construction of the project, named Starbase, Louisiana, is due to start next year on a 125,000-acre (50,585-hectare) site, and the company aims to launch its first Starship flight from the base in 2029, the BBC reported.
What will the site be used for? SpaceX said on Tuesday that the base will "support thousands of Starship flights a year with missions launching to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond." It expands the company's operations beyond its current Texas headquarters and its locations in Florida. The facility will share its name with another SpaceX site on the southern tip of Texas, where residents of an area of Cameron County that hosts the company's testing and development operations approved incorporating the land as a city called Starbase in 2025.
How many jobs will it bring? The facility will add more than 3,000 jobs to the region, the company said. The Louisiana Economic Development agency said the average wage of workers at the base, the largest of its kind in the world, would be 192% above the region's current average salary, and it estimated that more than 8,100 further jobs would be created indirectly. The agency called it a "historic project" that "will establish Louisiana as a global hub for next-generation aerospace, with the capacity and infrastructure needed to dramatically increase launch frequency and expand access to space."
How does it fit the company's wider plans? Musk has set out ambitious goals for SpaceX, including reaching Mars, developing artificial intelligence models and launching data centres into space, the BBC reported. In August, SpaceX and Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle and robotics firm, announced plans for a $16.8bn AI chip-making complex in Texas called the Terafab, meant to meet the companies' growing demand for computing power.
What pressure does the company face? SpaceX began trading on New York's technology-focused Nasdaq in June in the world's biggest ever stock market debut, and as a newly listed company it is under pressure to convince investors that it will be profitable even as it pursues its expansion plans. Its shares have fallen more than 30% from the highs reached shortly after listing, though they remain above the $135 offer price, the BBC reported.
Figures referenced: Elon Musk. — JudgeMarket.
