After building a Launch Tower at LC-39A in 2022, building what was to be the Roberts Road Starfactory, and then putting all of the plans on hold, SpaceX has since started ramping up the Starship Program at Cape Canaveral. With the redesign of the Starship Pad at LC-39A and a much larger production facility at Roberts Road, SpaceX is on its way to having a large Starship presence in Florida.
Roberts Road
SpaceX has been clearing out land just north of its Falcon 9 refurbishment hangar, otherwise known as Hangar X. This land will become the Production Site for the Starship program at Cape Canaveral. At Starbase, the production site includes a one million square foot Starfactory with two Mega Bays, one for Boosters and one for Ships, and an older High Bay, which is rarely used anymore.
Roberts Road is set to get a Gigabay, 130 meters by 110 meters and 115 meters tall. In comparison, the Mega Bays at Starbase are around 38 meters by 54 meters and 99 meters tall. These numbers mean that SpaceX can fit around 28 separate workstations inside this bay compared to the five that are currently in the Mega Bays. The height increase will also allow for the production of the stretched Boosters and Ships that SpaceX has planned, as the current Mega Bays aren’t tall enough.
Roberts Road (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
In addition to the Gigabay, SpaceX plans to build a 1.5 million square foot Starfactor,y which is 50 percent bigger than the current one in Starbase. This factory plus the larger bay, will help significantly increase production capacity. Another benefit is more room to maintain Boosters and Ships after flights and storage space. SpaceX will likely build more than one Gigabay as there is more than enough space in the northern area being cleared, and it intends to create hundreds of vehicles.
Overall, this will be a significant upgrade over what SpaceX has in Starbase, but it will take years to build and kit out with tooling and workstations. Currently, the Federal Aviation Administration document with the specifications for Gigabay states an Aug 2026 completion date, likely for just the structure itself.
LC-39A OLM at Roberts Road (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
Roberts Road is also home to SpaceX’s Starship launch tower production, where the stands from Starbase’s Pad B tower were returned. These have helped build three towers so far, and eventually, SpaceX will use the stands to build a tower for possibly SLC-37, which currently has an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) going.
Roberts Road is also home to the pieces for LC-39A’s Orbital Launch Mount which is set to be a replica of the one currently being built in Sanchez at Starbase. Most of the first two levels have already arrived for construction.
LC-39A Starship Pad
Starship’s first launch pad at Cape Canaveral will be at LC-39A, where a launch tower has been completed since Sept 2022. The tower sat unused with its chopsticks for a few years while SpaceX focused on Starbase and getting flight test data before proceeding. With the lessons learned and a flame trench now being dug for Pad B at Starbase, SpaceX has started working on the pad again after submitting a new EIS in the summer of 2024.
This outlined the changes to the launch pad and vehicle since the EIS from 2019 was out of date. As of Jan 2025, crews had started drilling pilings which will be for the flame trench and pile cap. This design is likely the same as what is currently being constructed at Pad B in Starbase.
LC-39A with Starship Pad Progress (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
SpaceX has also dismantled the large vertical liquid oxygen (LOX) tank built just behind the launch tower, where the launch mount was to be located. This is set to be replaced by several horizontal tanks, possibly next to the LOX sphere that has been at LC-39A since the Apollo Program and is currently being used by Falcon 9. With Starship’s LOX farm likely moving to next to the LOX Sphere, the water deluge farm will likely move to behind the tower, mirroring Pad B at Starbase
In addition to changing the LOX farm, all of the above-ground propellant lines that were between the Liquid Methane Sphere and the pad have since been dug up and SpaceX seems to be digging a commodities trench like at Starbase’s Pad B.
All the changes come from lessons learned over the pad seven test flights and the refurbishment of Pad A at Starbase. SpaceX has likely developed a launch pad that can be replicated anywhere it intends to build one for the Starship program.
LC-39A LOX Tank Farm (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
SLC-37
SpaceX is also planning on building more pads at Cape Canaveral, specifically SLC-37 or SLC-50, depending on the current EIS outcome. This would have at least one Starship pad to bring the total to four, including Starbase and LC-39A. The draft EIS is set to be released to the public in the spring of 2025, with a final completion date of fall of 2025.
The pad layout is unknown, but most of the existing Delta IV Heavy hardware would have to be demolished to build the Starship pad.
Featured Image: Roberts Road with the VAB in the Background (Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
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