Musk's SpaceX to invest $1.8 billion in Florida for Starship program expansion

Washington: SpaceX is planning to invest at least $1.8 billion to build new Starship launchpads and processing facilities on Florida's Space Coast, eyeing a key expansion for the rocket program beyond Texas amid pending environmental reviews, according to the state's governor.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has been looking to build new Starship launchpads near its primary launch sites in Florida, as it works in Texas on early development and testing of the next-generation rocket designed to loft bigger loads of satellites into space and put humans on the moon later this decade.

Ahead of SpaceX's eighth attempt to launch Starship from Texas on Monday, the company announced it is building a 380-foot tall, 815,000 square foot "Gigabay" facility where it will assemble future Starship rockets before shipping them to the launchpad.

The company is eyeing two Florida launchpads for Starship - one close to its primary launch site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Launch Complex 39A, and another potential site nearby at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Launch Complex 37. The 39A Starship site is already under construction.

"The project includes at least $1.8 billion of SpaceX capital investment and will bring an estimated 600 new full-time jobs in the Space Coast by 2030," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' office said in a statement on Monday.

SpaceX has not yet secured regulatory approvals to launch Starship from Florida.

The US Air Force is leading a review into how Starship launches in the state would impact the local environment. A draft report of SpaceX's plans and its environmental impact is expected to be published in the spring, followed by a regulatory decision later this year on whether to green-light those plans.

Some tenants of the area's other launch pads, such as the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, have called for more scrutiny into Starship's Florida plans over concerns an explosion of the rocket could cause widespread damage.

US officials for years have been trying to study the blast effects of a rocket so large that uses methane and liquid oxygen propellants.

Multiple Starship prototypes have exploded on or above SpaceX's sprawling, privately run facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, prompting pushback by environmental groups that have had little success restricting the company's speedy rocket development.

SpaceX has considered Starship explosions and mishaps crucial learning opportunities as part of a novel, capital-intensive test-to-failure development ethos that has underpinned its speed over rivals in the space industry.