Construction underway in FL for SpaceX 'Gigabay'
By: Eric Lagatta
and Brooke Edwards
USA Today Network - Florida
..... Following the latest test mission of its Starship spacecraft on may 27, [2025] which broke up about an hour after launch, SpaceX is looking to ramp up flights for the largest rocket ever built with launches from not only Texas, but also Florida.
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A gigantic launch system vehicle that has only ever lifted off form SpaceX's Star-base in South Texas could one day soon expand its operations to the Sunshine State. Plans call for billionaire Elon musk's commercial spaceflight company to bring Starship production and launch capabilities to the Space Coast. As SpaceX breaks ground in Florida on a new Starship facility it calls "Gigabay," the company is finalizing plans to launch the 400-foot-tall spacecraft Fromm NASA's Kennedy Space Center. "Expansion of Starship production and launch operations in Florida will enable SpaceX to significantly increase the build and flight rates for Starship," SpaceX wrote March 3 [2025] on their website. SpaceX has long had plans in place to build a Starship launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral. SpaceX would not only equip the site to launch Starship, but to catch its Super Heavy rocket-booster when it returns to the pad - as it as done three times at Star-base in Texas. SpaceX hopes to conduct Starship;s first Florida launch by the end of 2025.
..... Ultimately, SpaceX has ambitious plans for the construction of its 380-foot-tall Gigabay in Florida.
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The massive building, which will be used to stack and finalize the 232-foot-tall Super Heavy booster, or lower states, with the Starship vehicle before flights, is under construction near SpaceX's facility on Kennedy Space Center grounds. Gigabay is planned to be 815,000 square feet of workspace including a ground level, elevated platform work area, and a work and meeting space on the top floor. "Site preparaitons for Gigabay in Florida have already begun, with construction targeted to be completed and the facility operational by the end of 2026," SpaceX has said. SpaceX is also eyeing plans for a manufacturing facility on the same site to enable production of Starship in Florida. SpaceX is developing Starship to be a fully reusable transportation system, meaning the rocket and vehicle can return to the ground for additional missions. In the future, Starship is meant to carry cargo and humans to Earth's orbit and deeper int the cosmos. The 400-foot launch system is composed of both a 232-foot Super Heavy rocket and the 171-foot upper stage spacecraft or capsule where crew and cargo would ride.
..... NASA's lunar exploration plans call for Artemis III astronauts aboard the Orion capsule to board the Starship while in orbit for a ride to the moon's surface. But Musk is more preoccupied with Starship reaching Mars - potentially, he has claimed, by the end of 2026. Under his vision, human expeditions aboard the Starship could then follow in the years after the first uncrewed spacecraft reaches the Red Planet.