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According to the posts published by SpaceX earlier this month, the company has already started the search process of the engineer (s) who will be responsible for preparing Starship / Super Heavy and its future protection facilities for the inaugural launches of the rocket.
According to one of these publications, the "initial launch capability" of Starship / Super Heavy will be realized in the historic Kennedy Space Center (also called Pad 39A) 39A launch complex, a facility rented by SpaceX since 2014 and launched in 2017. Originally Built In the 1960s, to support Saturn V, the largest operational American rocket ever built, Pad 39A has dedicated three more decades to support dozens of Shuttle launches until that it is also retired, after which SpaceX has taken over the historic facilities. Although SpaceX has specifically discussed the project of eventually transforming its South Texas outpost into a full-fledged orbital launch site, it will be an extremely slow and expensive undertaking, and Pad 39A makes sense for several reasons.
Building rocket launch facilities is difficult
Although SpaceX has always tended to aggressively outperform competitors and peers, building a new launch complex from scratch is extremely difficult. For example, after the catastrophic failure of Falcon 9 on Pad 40 (LC-40) in September 2016, SpaceX had to undergo major renovations and even planned upgrades. Nevertheless, much of the platform remained intact, including the flame trench (with minor damage), hangar facilities, and so on.
In the end, SpaceX took more than 10 months and $ 50 million to repair, rebuild and upgrade the LC-40. The most important transport station was probably the new haulier / rigger and its associated water launching and deluge mounting system, followed by the new plumbing and communication infrastructure throughout the runway. However, the most costly and time-consuming process is to lay the groundwork for the launch pad, which SpaceX was able to ignore for the most part after relatively minor repairs and modifications.
Although Blue Origin is as tight as space start-ups, the owner, Jeff Bezos, said the company's large-scale LC-36 notebook, built from a clean slate, was part of a overall investment of "over a billion dollars". This is a new factory, LC-36, and a more general campus in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The construction of a factory costs even more than the launch facilities. The total cost of building an LC-36 from scratch is probably between $ 150 and $ 300 million, although it may be even more expensive.
The LC-36 is built for New Glenn, a rocket producing about 75% of the thrust of the Falcon Heavy and about 25% of that of the Starship Super Heavy Thruster on takeoff. It's a simple point: If SpaceX wants it, building a new Super Heavy class launch platform in Boca Chica will take a minimum of one year and more than $ 100 million (assuming Blue Origin has been somewhat inefficient, as usual). SpaceX's current configuration is clearly dedicated to much lower Starhopper (and possibly Starship) test flights, while an orbital launch complex capable of surviving Super Heavy take-offs would be at least 5X larger and would imply an important laying of foundations and much more concrete.
All in all, SpaceX is already designing and – soon – to build the launch complex (or complementary hardware) that will support the first suborbital and orbital launches of Starship and Super Heavy. According to the aforementioned pitch technician position, it seems almost certain that the work visible on Pad 39A could begin at any time, whether or not SpaceX intends to subtly alter 39A's existing facilities or build something entirely new within its borders.
According to Jonathan Hofeller, Vice President of Commercial Sales SpaceX, "the goal is to have an orbit as quickly as possible, potentially even this year, with the full operational stack by the end of next year, then customers in early 2021 ". In short, Starship and Super Heavy compatible launch facilities will be needed at 39A (and possibly at Boca Chica) much sooner rather than later. Although it is likely that the development of the vehicle will suffer delays that could delay the launch of Starship's orbital launch in 2021 or beyond, the design and construction of the launch pad is difficult and slow but remains fairly predictable. and it's certainly better to be early than late. In short, the next 12 months will be wild.
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