In a flurry of ground activity that underscores SpaceX’s relentless drive for launch cadence, engineers at the company’s Starbase facility are overhauling Launch Pad 1 while putting the finishing touches on Pad 2.
These parallel efforts—centered on a massive new flame trench, an on-site Air Separation Unit (ASU), expanded propellant storage, and critical tower testing—are explicitly aimed at slashing turnaround times and preparing the site for the next Starship launch, with Flight 12 in the next month or two.
The centerpiece of the Pad 1 transformation is the excavation of a dedicated flame trench, a structural fix designed to eliminate the chronic refurbishment headaches that plagued the original launch mount.
That earlier design, which lacked rapid-reusability features, forced weeks or even months of repairs after every mission. A water-cooled steel plate had to be retrofitted after Flight 1 simply to keep 33 Raptor engines from ripping the concrete apart during liftoff.
The Booster Quick Disconnect (BQD) fared even worse, absorbing punishing forces during the pad-avoidance maneuver and demanding extensive rework between flights.
The new configuration will mirror the proven layout already operating at neighboring Pad 2.
Over the past week, crews have driven additional sheet piles deep into the soil where the trench will be dug.
These interlocking steel barriers serve dual purposes: preventing groundwater intrusion into the excavation and providing permanent structural reinforcement for the trench walls.
The result will be a pad capable of supporting back-to-back launches with minimal downtime—precisely the philosophy SpaceX has been iterating toward since the program’s inception.
While Pad 1 undergoes its surgical makeover, crews have also been troubleshooting the long-dormant chopstick carriage system.
The tower’s iconic mechanical arms have been offline for months, forcing technicians to move them manually. The upgrade coincides with a broader redesign of ground support equipment (GSE). Previously, tanks, hydraulics, and electrical lines sat in close proximity to the launch mount.
The new service structure relocates everything to a hardened bunker off to the side.
All connections from the tank farm now route through this secure node before reaching the BQDs and hold-down clamps, dramatically reducing exposure to engine exhaust and simplifying future maintenance.
Complementing the pad work is a significant expansion of the propellant tank farm.
Two newly installed Liquid Methane storage tanks have recently completed functional testing and are now being integrated into the system. The added capacity is critical as both vehicle performance and dual-pad operations scale up.
But the most forward-looking addition is the Air Separation Unit now rising beside the tanks—an industrial-scale facility that will finally free Starbase from its dependence on daily truck deliveries of liquid oxygen and nitrogen.
The ASU works by pulling in ambient air, filtering out dust and debris, then feeding it into compact centrifugal compressors chosen for their simplicity, smaller footprint, and lower maintenance needs compared with traditional axial designs. Once pressurized, the air undergoes purification to strip away water vapor and carbon dioxide—preventing ice formation during the next stage.
It is cooled to roughly minus 173 °C (minus 280 °F), liquefied, and distilled in a cryogenic fractionating column that separates oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. The purified commodities are then pumped directly into the expanded tank farm.
By producing its own cryogens on demand, SpaceX eliminates the logistical bottleneck and cost of tanker fleets, a prerequisite for the weekly launch tempo the company ultimately envisions.
Meanwhile, Pad 2—already cleared of its first vehicle testing—has shifted into high-gear verification testing.
The Orbital Launch Mount (OLM) recently completed a landmark series of clamp-retraction demonstrations. For the first time, all 20 brand-new hold-down arms were observed retracting simultaneously, a maneuver repeated multiple times over several days.
On older Pad 1, the clamps were never visible from public vantage points, making this synchronized test a visible milestone.
Rapid, uniform retraction is non-negotiable: the arms must clear instantly to protect themselves from the searing exhaust of the Raptor 3 engines and to provide adequate engine-bay clearance at liftoff. Any hesitation would risk catastrophic damage.
Higher on the tower, crews have installed a new roof structure using the massive Buckner LR11000 crane that has dominated the Starbase skyline for weeks.
The reinforced canopy serves as protective shielding at the tower’s apex. Its placement is no accident: during future ship recovery operations, the Starship upper stage will approach from the rear of the tower.
The top section will be directly in the path of the three sea-level Raptors during the flip-and-burn maneuver that slows the vehicle for catch. The new shielding will safeguard the tower’s critical mechanisms while the chopsticks perform their precision embrace.
Collectively, these upgrades represent a step-change in Starbase’s maturity. Pad 1 is being rebuilt from the ground up for true rapid reusability. Pad 2 is methodically checking every box required for operational certification.
The ASU and tank-farm expansion remove external supply-chain friction. And the tower modifications prepare the infrastructure for the complex ship-catch operations that will define the program’s next chapter.
With Booster 19 having already completed cryo proof-testing and a shortened static fire on Pad 2, and with Flight 12 hardware now in various stages of stacking and integration, the timeline is tightening.
SpaceX has not yet announced an exact window, but the visible progress—flame-trench excavation, ASU commissioning, synchronized clamp tests, and tower shielding—leaves little doubt that the company is positioning Starbase to support not just Flight 12’s upcoming mission, but a quick turnaround for Flight 13 onwards.
Featured Image: Pad 1 and 2 – via Ceaser for NSF.
The post Progress on Starbase Pads ahead of Block 3 Starships appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.
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