The Starbase production site is getting an expansion called Starfactory, which should help SpaceX’s plans to produce at least one megastar per day.
The Starfactory, which will occupy 9,290 square meters of Starbase’s factory space, is estimated to cost $100 million.
After the extremely successful of the fourth test flight of Starship (both stages were successfully powered), Kate Tice, Quality Systems Development Manager at SpaceX, announced plans to produce one such rocket per day and the upcoming release of Starship Version 2.
The Starship Version 2 is designed to be lighter and more mass-produced (at the new Starfactory) and is rumored to contain more fuel, have a lower dry weight (without fuel), and be more reliable and have some aerodynamic changes (in particular, in the fins — one of them, as you remember, actually melted during the fourth flight).
In this time-lapse, you can see the Starfactory construction process in May:
For Elon Musk, Starship is a spacecraft that will transport people to Mars, and NASA primarily expects to use it as a lunar lander that will deliver astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. In the short term, SpaceX also plans to use Starship to deploy the next generation of Starlink Internet satellites.
Starship will ultimately have to perform many more test flights (Musk announced at least 6 in 2024 alone) before it can start real work (including the goal of landing both stages on the launch pad), but in general, all 4 flights (and especially the last one) can be called successful — now we are waiting for the analysis of the data from the SpaceX team.
Jesse Anderson, Falcon Structures Manufacturing Engineering Manager at SpaceX, announced that the ships and accelerators for the next tests have also been built.