Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Inside SpaceX's Plan to Build Five Starship Launch Pads

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Inside SpaceX's Plan to Build Five Starship Launch Pads · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  SpaceX flew Starship 5 times in 2025.
• 0:03
  Only two of those flights ended with the ship in one piece.
• 0:06
  The first 3 attempts of the year all failed.
• 0:09
  During ascent, ship 33 developed a harmonic response in its F
• 0:13
  section and burned up over the Turks and Caicos.
• 0:15
  Ship 34 caught fire in the engine compartment due to
• 0:18
  incorrectly preloaded engine mount bolts.
• 0:20
  Ship 35 lost control after a methane pressurization leak and
• 0:24
  tow into re entry. Then in June, Ship 36 exploded
• 0:27
  on the test stand before it even flew.
• 0:29
  By the middle of the year, SpaceX has lost four ships in a
• 0:32
  row and destroyed the infrastructure needed to test
• 0:35
  them. This is the most important
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  rocket program in America and has spent six months breaking
• 0:39
  things. What happened next is the reason
• 0:41
  SpaceX remains the most capable launch company on Earth.
• 0:44
  Flight 10 launched on August 26th. 125 Ship 37 completed
• 0:48
  every objective and deployed Starling simulators in orbit,
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  relayed A Raptor engine in space, survived reentry, and
• 0:54
  landed intact in the Indian Ocean.
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  Flight 11 repeated the success in October, and both vehicles
• 0:59
  splashed down exactly where they were supposed to.
• 1:01
  SpaceX closed the year having recovered from disaster and
• 1:04
  proven the block to Starship actually works.
• 1:07
  Now they are tearing everything to building something bigger.
• 1:10
  The story of Starship in 2025 is not just about flight tests,
• 1:14
  it's about infrastructure. SpaceX is constructing what may
• 1:17
  be the largest rocket production and launch complex ever built,
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  and they're doing it simultaneously in Texas and in
• 1:23
  Florida as Starbase Texas. Crews demolished the original
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  high Bay in the Stargate Building to make room for a new
• 1:29
  structure called Giga Bay. The current mega Bay at Star
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  Base can house a maximum of 6 workstations.
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  Giga Bay will house at least 24 as of the end of December.
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  The structure is at least three levels of steel columns, with at
• 1:42
  least two more to go before the roof.
• 1:44
  A nearly identical Giga Bay is rising and Roberts roads and
• 1:47
  floors and the two sites are racing to see which finishes
• 1:51
  first. These facilities are not
• 1:53
  optional upgrades, they're necessary for the next
• 1:55
  generation of the vehicle. Block 4 Starship will use an 80m
• 1:59
  tall booster compared to the 71 meter boosters flying today.
• 2:03
  The current mega bays are not tall enough to build them.
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  Until the gigabase are complete, SpaceX cannot manufacture the
• 2:09
  next block of hardware. The structure and the schedule
• 2:11
  for everything that follows, including crude lunar landings,
• 2:15
  depends on those buildings going up now.
• 2:17
  Speaking of crews, I've been digging through the analytics of
• 2:19
  the show and noticed that 37% of you are following the channel
• 2:23
  and are part of this crew. For you I'm forever grateful and
• 2:26
  the other 63% haven't hit the follower the subscribe button.
• 2:28
  I've been an independent journalist list covering SpaceX,
• 2:31
  Elon Musk, and tech for the last six years and I'll continue for
• 2:34
  the next 10 years with your support.
• 2:35
  And all I ask from you is one second of your time to hit the
• 2:39
  subscribe button or the follow button on the platform you're
• 2:41
  watching on right now. I'm extremely grateful and
• 2:44
  blessed to have you in this community.
• 2:45
  Thank you so much for your support.
• 2:47
  Now the launch site build out is equally aggressive.
• 2:50
  Pad 2 with Starbase is nearly complete.
• 2:52
  The tower was fully stacked and around 2024 the launch mount was
• 2:56
  installed. In May of 2025.
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  The side service structure, which houses all the cryo veils,
• 3:01
  high pressure lines and electrical systems, looks like
• 3:03
  it's finished. This is a new design that will
• 3:05
  become the standard for all future Starship pads.
• 3:08
  Pad 1 supported all 11 full stack flights and even served as
• 3:12
  an emergency ship. Static fire stand after the
• 3:15
  Massey's explosion was demolished after flight.
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  It's gone, but it will be rebuilt and reborn to match the
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  new specifications. Like a Phoenix, it'll rise again
• 3:24
  in Florida. LC39A has made substantial
• 3:27
  progress after sitting dormant for years following the tower
• 3:30
  installation in 2022. After the past year, SpaceX
• 3:33
  built a large section of the tank farm, excavated and
• 3:36
  constructed the flame trench, and modified the chopsticks.
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  There's still work to do, but SpaceX is targeting the
• 3:41
  second-half of 2026 for the first launch attempt from
• 3:44
  Kennedy Space Center. This would be the first Starship
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  launch from Florida in the first used of a second operational
• 3:50
  pad. On December 1st of 2025, X
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  received environmental approval to begin construction on SLC 37,
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  where two additional launch launch towers will be built.
• 4:01
  SLC 37 is historic. It was originally built for the
• 4:04
  Saturn in Saturn 1V rockets that preceded Apollo.
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  It has been inactive for decades, and SpaceX will
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  transform it into a dual pad Starship complex.
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  When all this is finished, SpaceX will have 5 operational
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  Starship pads, 2 at star base, one at LC39A, and two at SLC 37.
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  No other rocket program in history has attempted to build
• 4:24
  launch infrastructure at this scale and at this speed.
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  And for comparison, NASA spent years building a single mobile
• 4:30
  launcher for the SLS. Now, getting vehicles from Texas
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  to Florida will require a new logistics Jade.
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  SpaceX is preparing to transport completed and tested Starships
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  horizontally on a barge called Marmac 31.
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  This barge was recently spotted delivering a liquid oxygen tank
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  to the turning basin near LC39A. What's the gig of a Roberts Rd.
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  is operational and Star Factory's built.
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  Florida will be able to produce its own vehicles, but until
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  then, everything ships from Star Base now.
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  Block 3 is supposed to open 2026 with a back.
• 5:00
  Butt has already hit a set back a bang.
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  Booster 18, which was slated to fly on Flight 12 alongside Ship
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  39, suffered a failure during pneumatic pressure testing at
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  Massey's. A composite overwrapped pressure
• 5:11
  vessel, or COPD, appears to have failed, causing the liquid
• 5:14
  oxygen tank to rupture, and the booster was destroyed.
• 5:17
  SpaceX responded by speed stacking Booster 19 in 26 days,
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  the faster, fastest booster integration in program history.
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  The Ship 39 is waiting in Mega Bay 2 for the cryogenic proof
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  station and Massey's to be ready now.
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  Block 3 should be a near clean sheet, redesigned from the
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  booster and significant upgrades for the IT is the vehicle that
• 5:35
  will eventually carry crew. The flight test results from
• 5:38
  2025 tell a story of resilience under pressure. 3 consecutive
• 5:43
  ship failures in the first half of the year could have derailed
• 5:45
  the program. The explosion of ship 36
• 5:47
  destroyed critical ground infrastructure and for SpaceX to
• 5:50
  improvise a new testing approach and launch bound itself.
• 5:52
  The fact that flights 10 and 11 both succeeded suggests the
• 5:56
  engineering problems have been solved, at least for Block 2.
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  Whether Block 3 performs forms as well remains to be seen, and
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  the program has never gone more than two flights without any
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  major anomaly. There were also historic
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  achievements. Flight 7 and 8 both resulted in
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  successful booster catches, bringing the total to three.
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  Booster 14 came back to the tower on January 16th, 2025,
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  becoming the second Super Heavy ever caught.
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  Booster 15 followed on March 6th, becoming the third.
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  As of the end of 2025, no booster has been caught since.
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  Flights 10 and 11 both ended with booster splashdowns in the
• 6:27
  Gulf of Mexico rather than catch attempts.
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  SpaceX has not publicly explained why they stopped
• 6:31
  trying to catch boosters, but the pad demolition and rebuild
• 6:34
  likely play a role in this. You can't catch a booster if the
• 6:37
  tower is being torn down in the meantime.
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  Now, Flight 9 marked the first reflight of a Super Heavy
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  booster. Booster 14 Two completed a
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  perfect splashdown using 29 reused Raptor engines.
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  This was a critical milestone for reusability, even though the
• 6:50
  ship on that flight was completely lost the ability to
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  fly the same booster twice as foundational to the economics of
• 6:55
  the entire program. The boosters cannot be reused.
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  Starship becomes an expendable vehicle that happens to be
• 7:01
  extra, extra large, and Flight 9 proved that reuse is possible.
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  The next step is proving it works consistently, and.
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  Flight 11 was the final launch of Block 2 and the final launch
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  from pad 1 and its original configuration.
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  Ship 38 in booster 15-2 lifted off on October 13, 2025, and
• 7:18
  both vehicles completed all objectives.
• 7:20
  The booster splashed out in the Gulf, the ship deployed star
• 7:22
  simulators relit its Raptor engine in space, survived
• 7:26
  reentry, and landed in the Indian Ocean.
• 7:28
  It was a fitting end to a chapter that, again with Flight
• 7:30
  1 in April 2023, the vehicle exploded 4 minutes after
• 7:34
  liftoff, and SpaceX celebrated because it cleared the tower.
• 7:38
  The ambition is staggering. SpaceX is not just iterating on
• 7:40
  a rocket. They're building and building
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  and building, and they're building an industrial base
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  capable of producing and launching Starships at a rate
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  that would make the vehicle effectively disposable if
• 7:50
  needed, or rapidly reusable if the catch system works
• 7:52
  consistently. The giga bays are sized to
• 7:54
  support that vision. The five launch pads are sized
• 7:56
  to support that vision. The barge transport system is
• 7:59
  designed to keep Florida supplied with vehicles even
• 8:02
  before production comes online. Every piece connects in this
• 8:05
  vision. Now, whether SpaceX can execute
• 8:08
  remains the open question. The Massey's stand is still not
• 8:11
  fully operational after the Ship 36 explosion.
• 8:13
  That getting to it. Wooster 18 was lost before it
• 8:16
  even flew. Ship 39 is waiting on
• 8:18
  infrastructure repairs. Block 3 has not completed a
• 8:20
  single flight. LC39A has never launched A
• 8:23
  Starship. SLC 37 is a construction site.
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  The company is building faster than anyone else.
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  But building is not the same as flying and Flight 12 will be the
• 8:30
  first real test of whether 2026 can deliver on the promise of
• 8:33
  2025. Now the foundations for this are
• 8:35
  all laid has to prove they can stand on those foundations.
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  This is the rocket that will carry humans back to the surface
• 8:42
  of the moon and it's still learning how to fly.
• 8:44
  SpaceX will succeed and they will eventually get people to
• 8:48
  the surface of Mars. Hey, thank you so much for
• 8:50
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 8:52
  support. If you could take a second and
• 8:53
  hit this subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast right
• 8:57
  now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show
• 9:00
  tremendously and you'll knit and each episode is about 10 minutes
• 9:03
  to get you caught up quickly. And please, if you report the
• 9:05
  show, evenmore.com/stage Zero and please take care of
• 9:10
  yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.