RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Fortune — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
See the full story · 9 sources
Rather apparent in SpaceX’s IPO filings is the ever-constant named goal of reaching Mars to build compute infrastructure and even human settlements on the red planet. In Elon Musk’s first earnings call, he reiterated those goals , the very ones that led him to create the company over two decades ago. Now he’s expanding his lofty space travel aspirations with a new real-estate and infrastructure investment.
SpaceX is committing $100 billion to build a massive new spaceport in coastal Louisiana, giving the rocket company another multibillion-dollar expansion project as it races to scale Starship, satellite manufacturing and AI infrastructure. The facility, called Starbase Louisiana, will occupy roughly 125,000 acres on Pecan Island in Vermilion Parish and is expected to become the fourth and largest of SpaceX’s launch complexes.
Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027, with the first launch targeted for as early as 2029. At full buildout, the site is expected to contain five launch facilties—each with two launch pads—along with propellant farms, a propellant-production facility, power generation, vehicle-processing facilities and housing for employees and their families.
“Starbase Louisiana will ultimately have over a dozen launch towers, enabling more than 30 Starship flights per day and making it the biggest launch site on Earth,” Musk posted on X. “SpaceX makes sci-fi real.”
(function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})();
“Potentially the world’s largest spaceport”
Louisiana Economic Development describes the project as potentially the world’s largest spaceport, with the capacity to support thousands of launches a year.
That claim is about launch capacity, not land. By physical footprint, the current record holder is Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, sprawling across roughly 6,717 square kilometers—more than 13 times the size of SpaceX’s planned Louisiana site. What Musk and Louisiana officials mean by “biggest launch site on Earth” is cadence: Starbase Louisiana is designed for more than a dozen launch towers and over 30 Starship flights a day, a pace no existing spaceport, including Baikonur, comes close to matching.
Louisiana Economic Development estimates SpaceX will create more than 3,000 direct jobs over the next decade, with an average annual salary of $92,600, as well as roughly 8,100 indirect jobs—leading to more than 11,100 new job opportunities in Acadiana.
“Today is a pivotal moment for Louisiana. This announcement pushes our state beyond $250 billion in new investment and puts us at the center of the next great frontier,” Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said in the news release. “We have the people and talent to build what the world once thought impossible, creating jobs on land, across the Gulf and through space. Our job creation knows no bounds.”
The Louisiana site is intended to become a major part of SpaceX’s push to make Starship a high-frequency launch system. The company says the Gulf Coast location provides access to a wide range of launch trajectories, while the availability of natural gas can support the facility’s fuel and power requirements. SpaceX also envisions the site supporting missions beyond conventional satellite launches, including lunar and Mars missions and the deployment of satellites for its emerging orbital data center business.
The project is also projected to be a major economic-development bet for the state. Louisiana offered SpaceX an incentive package tied to the capital investment, job creation and other commitments. Under a local payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement, SpaceX will make a $20 million upfront payment and at least $25 million annually for 25 years, with the state estimating more than $820 million in direct local payments under the agreement. The company will also make a $25 million charitable contribution to the Community Foundation of Acadiana.
The property was formerly owned by Exxon Mobil, and the state says the development will bring the site back into commercial use while creating new economic activity along the coast. SpaceX is also expected to work with Louisiana agencies on wetlands, wildlife, coastal and environmental reviews and restoration.
Musk’s growing space-travel portfolio
Starbase Louisiana joins a rapidly expanding network of facilities designed to increase Musk’s ability to manufacture, launch and eventually refurbish space travel for humanity in future years. SpaceX’s existing Starbase in South Texas remains the center of Starship development and launch operations. The company has been expanding manufacturing capacity there with a facility known as Gigabay, designed to add 24 work cells for Starship construction, integration and refurbishment. Texas officials have awarded SpaceX a grant of up to $7.5 million for the project, while state regulatory filings put the Gigabay facility at roughly 700,000 square feet and an estimated $250 million in construction costs.
But there are other big fish to fry for the tech giant in Texas. SpaceX announced earlier in August it is building a manufacturing operation for vertically integrated semiconductors—dubbed “Terafab”—which will become the world’s largest building once constructed. The joint Tesla-SpaceX project is planned to be located in Grimes County, where it announced an initial investment of more than $16.8 billion. The factory will exceed 100 million square feet—making it five times larger than the current largest building on the planet—and manufacture, package and test advanced logic and memory chips for applications which include Tesla vehicles, robots and space-based data centers. It also filed eight tax applications to...
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.