Miami- The space company SpaceX announced this Tuesday that it will build, with an investment of more than $100,000 million, a base starting next year in the state of Louisiana similar to the “Starbase” it has in Texaswith the aim of increasing annual releases.
“Starbase Louisiana will be built to support thousands of Starship flights a year with missions blasting off to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.”reported on its website the company founded by Elon Musk.
The future base will be built in the coastal area of Vermilion Parish, in the south of the state.
According to the schedule, the first launch into space from there will take place in 2029. Those facilities will serve as the main takeoff headquarters for Starship, SpaceX’s reusable rocket.
The development of Starship is fundamental to the plans that the POT has to establish a permanent human settlement on the Moon. Musk said last February that the space company will prioritize building a city on the Earth’s satellite before, on Marsas originally planned.
The announcement of the future base in Louisiana occurs amidst the full increase in SpaceX’s space activity from California, Florida and Texas.
Although most of the launches have the objective of putting satellites into orbit for the global Starlink network, Musk’s company also collaborates with NASA on personnel rotation missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and in a wide variety of commercial, military and scientific space operations.
SpaceX assured that the base will help protect the coastline, restore wetlands and support wildlife in Louisiana, even though its facilities in Texas have received constant complaints from environmental groups due to their environmental impact.
Despite these complaints, in 2025 the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, in English) authorized SpaceX to conduct up to 25 launches annually from South Texas, five times more than the previous limit.