SpaceX South Texas Development and Launch Site - Boca Chica/Starbase

[texan]

With NASA recently selecting SpaceX's Starship as its lunar lander for the Artemis program, I figured some people may be interested in seeing the development of the Starship launch site since Starship will be part of the Artemis program lead out of the Johnson Space Center in Houston. None of the images were taken by me.

 

Overview

 

Current view of the launch site with Serial Number 15 (SN15) ready for testing.

Orbital launch platform and integration tower. The truss structure on the left will stack the rocket stages and will be 469 ft tall. The slanted columns in the shape of a hexagon will become the orbital launchpad where Starship will launch from.

 

Build site where construction of the rockets take place.

[texan]

It seems like a lot of people on here are obsessed with cranes so here’s an interesting one for y’all. I assume this will be used to build the 500 foot launch integration tower. I think it has been nicknamed “Frankencrane” by some reporters.

Edited May 18, 2021 by texan

[texan]

Here's a great silhouette of the launch site. The tall object on the far right is the Launch Integration Tower and the tall object in the center is the third test booster.

Orbital Launch Mount stacking (from Elon's Twitter page).

 

[texan]

 

This project means more for Houston as the GAO has denied protests by Blue Origin and Dynetics to invalidate NASA’s contract with SpaceX for the lunar lander program. This rocket will be used for NASA’s next lunar lander.

[hindesky]