Starbase, Texas

One coastal strip

Factory and Spaceport in the Same Place

Starbase co-locates manufacturing, testing and launch, which is what lets Starship iterate as fast as it does.

Starbase sits at Boca Chica on the southern tip of Texas, incorporated as its own city, Starbase, Texas, in 2025. It holds a manufacturing site, a test site and two launch pads, all within a few kilometres, operating around the clock. Both stages are built here, cryo-proofed and static-fired here, stacked here and — through Flight 14 — launched here. That density is the point: a ship can go from the factory floor to the pad without leaving the site, which is why the program’s whole flight history has run through this one location.

SpaceX has invested more than $3 billion in Starbase and Starship systems, and the site is now the reference design for the Florida and Louisiana buildouts. Observed

Production buildings

Starfactory Makes the Parts; the Bays Stack Them

A continuous pipeline from steel coil to a stacked vehicle, about to roughly quadruple in integration capacity.

Where the two Mega Bays together offer six work stations, the Gigabay is planned for at least 24 — roughly a fourfold jump in stacking capacity at Starbase alone, matched by a twin Gigabay in Florida.

The two pads

Pad 2 Flies While Pad 1 Is Rebuilt

One pad active, one being reconstructed for rapid reuse and ship catches.

Pad 1 flew every mission through Flight 11, then went down for its rebuild; Pad 2 debuted the Block 3 vehicle. The rebuild adds the shielding a ship catch needs, so Starbase is being set up to catch both stages at both towers. Recovery in full is on the Recovery & Landing page.

Massey's & testing

Nothing Flies Until Massey's Signs Off

The cryogenic proof and ship static-fire site, rebuilt after an explosion.

Massey’s is Starbase’s test site, the primary cryogenic proof area for every ship and booster and the stand where ships static-fire before flight. A new multipurpose rig there can squeeze the payload section and test the orbital refueling mechanism. Massey’s was heavily damaged when Ship 36 exploded during propellant loading in June 2025 — a nitrogen COPV failed below its proof pressure and ruptured the methane tank — and was rebuilt with a new electrical and control bunker to harden it against a repeat. Engines themselves are built and fired at McGregor, not here.

Tank farm & ASU

Oxygen Is Moving On Site; Methane Still Arrives by Truck

The propellant chain is covered in full on its own page; here is the Starbase-specific hardware.

The orbital tank farm stores liquid methane, liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen for subcooling and deluge water, with subcoolers that chill propellant below its boiling point for density; two new methane tanks were added in 2026 for dual-pad operations. An air separation unit has been under construction beside Highway 4 since July 2025 to make oxygen and nitrogen on site, cutting the 200-plus tanker trucks each launch needs by roughly 75%. Methane still arrives as trucked commercial LNG. The whole propellant system, including the Brownsville Linde plant, is on Propellant Supply.

Contested

Deliberately Not Claimed

The load-bearing uncertainties, tagged with the confidence they actually earn.

Record

Provenance and Data Sources