SpaceX is beginning to lay the groundwork for an accelerated launch schedule for its Starship spacecraft.
The company will begin building a pipeline next month to bring natural gas to its Starbase complex, where it can be processed and converted into liquid methane to fuel the reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle. Ultimately, that could help the company meet its goal of as many as 25 launches per year, and perhaps allow it to exceed that number.
At present, fuel for the rocket has to be transported to the Starbase complex, a process that is both time-consuming and expensive. By running the eight-mile pipeline to the spaceport, SpaceX could lower expenses over the long run and speed up its launch cadence.
This may only be a temporary fix. Gwynne Shotwell, president of the rocket company, told CNBC earlier this month that SpaceX was considering drilling its own natural gas in the future. While challenging, that could further lower costs if successful.
SpaceX did not reply to a request for comment about the pipeline.
The basis for this new supply system began last August, when SpaceX filed engineering plans with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announcing its intention to build a liquefaction facility at Starbase to create the liquid methane required to send its rockets into space.
SpaceX has signed more than 100 oil and gas leases with property owners in Texas over the past three years. Starpipe, as the pipeline is being called, will reportedly originate on an 83-acre piece of land at the Port of Brownsville, which Reuters says SpaceX plans to lease from the city for 50 years.
While transporting natural gas to a processing plant at the base of its operations makes clear fiscal sense, some residents are concerned about potential environmental impacts. The area around Starbase includes sensitive wetland habitats.
This would not be the first time the company has faced those concerns. In 2023, the mid-air explosion of a SpaceX Starship Super Heavy launch spread debris over an area more than twice as large as Disneyland and may have been responsible for a 3.5-acre fire, according to a study from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The FWS noted, however, that it had not found any dead birds or other wildlife on National Wildlife Refuge lands near the launch pads. Those areas are designated as habitat for at least one endangered bird species.
SpaceX had a rocky start with Starship, but has since improved its success rate to 58%, with seven successful launches and five failed ones. Beyond the environmental concerns, the increased pace of launches is creating headaches for air traffic controllers in the region.
The company is counting on the booster to power many of its long-term goals, from launching space-based data centers and more Starlink satellites to supporting extraterrestrial expeditions. NASA has a multibillion-dollar contract with SpaceX to use Starship to land astronauts on the moon, and the booster is central to the company’s plans to send a crew to Mars at some point.
The rocket is massive, unlike anything that has been attempted before. Standing at 397 feet tall, 232 feet of which belongs to the booster, it uses 33 Raptor engines. Collectively, they give the spacecraft 16.7 million pounds of thrust, nearly twice that of NASA’s most advanced system.
To achieve that, however, a single Starship launch requires roughly 630,000 gallons of liquid methane.
Construction on the pipeline to bring in the natural gas needed to produce that fuel is expected to begin next month and continue through late January 2027.