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SpaceX is building giant new Starship assembly facility,

launch

pads in Florida

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State says $1.8 billion SpaceX investment will create 600

future

jobs

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SpaceX does not yet have regulatory approval for Florida

Starship launches

By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - 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 U.S. 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.

U.S. 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.