SpaceX South Texas Launch Site

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SpaceX South Texas Launch Site (USA 48)
Boca Chica
Boca Chica
Hawthorne (headquarters)
Hawthorne
(headquarters)
McGregor Engine Center
McGregor Engine Center
SpaceX facilities, in the far south the new spaceport (red = launch site)

The SpaceX South Texas Launch Site , officially the SpaceX Texas Launch Site , is a spaceport under construction in Boca Chica Village near Brownsville , Texas . The facility is owned and operated by the US space company SpaceX . Starting in 2016, up to twelve Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missiles should be launched there per year. Instead, since 2018, the site has been prepared as a production and test center for the new SpaceX starship and its “Super Heavy” booster .

The construction costs for the spaceport is expected to more than 100 million US dollar amount; of this, at least 15 million are subsidized with public money .

Location and structure

SpaceX systems

Artist's impression of the originally planned starting area

The SpaceX South Texas Launch Site is on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico , three miles north of the Mexican border . It consists of an 8  hectare large launch site ( launch area , shown on the left) and a comprehensive 5 hectares area control center ( control center area ). Both are connected by Texas State Highway 4 , which runs from Brownsville to the ocean. There are public parks to the north of the facility and a public beach to the east, which must be closed for up to 15 hours each time the rocket is launched. In the south the area borders on a nature reserve and in the west on the 26-inhabitant village Boca Chica Village (as of 2015).

The starting area is a few hundred meters from the sea. In contrast to the other launch systems operated by SpaceX, there is no inclined ramp there. Instead, the rockets should be driven from the final assembly hangar over a flat runway to the launch site and stand there on scaffolding. In addition to the usual facilities such as fuel tanks and an elevated water tank - as at Cape Canaveral AFS Launch Complex 40 - four lightning rod towers are to be built.

About three kilometers to the west, directly adjacent to the village, there is an area called Mars Crossing . There the control center and other systems are z. B. erected for the preparation of the payloads .

The original plan from 2014 envisaged that 150 employees would be permanently active in the facilities operated by SpaceX in the long term; another 100 temporary forces are to be added with each missile launch. The construction of the Starship missile factory exceeded this number by far; In February 2020, 500 people were already working on the site.

Because of drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and the offshore Caribbean islands , the available flight routes are limited; however, according to SpaceX, there is a good route for geostationary transfer orbits.

An antenna of the ground station in Boca Chica

Stargate

In addition to the control center, the Stargate , a joint operations and research facility of SpaceX and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, is being built . It is intended to take over ground communications with spacecraft such as the Dragon V2 and develop a new technology for spacecraft tracking and satellite communications . The university provided $ 9 million for this project, regardless of the SpaceX public funding. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory , the Jet Propulsion Laboratory , the United States Naval Research Laboratory and the Arecibo Observatory also want to participate in Stargate . Two disused S-band antennas were taken over from NASA . They used to be used to communicate with the space shuttle .

history

Preparations

Initial talks between SpaceX and representatives of the Texas government about building a rocket launch site took place in 2011. At the time, SpaceX only had one active launch site, CC-40 in Florida , and the Falcon 9 had only completed two (test) flights. In July 2011, the preparation of a second launch complex for Falcon missiles ( SLC-4W ) began at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California . Both places are on military bases , i. H. special safety precautions and access restrictions apply.

In September 2011, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk mentioned that an additional facility was planned specifically for commercial launches. Six weeks later, the company confirmed that it was planning to set up another launch site due to the increasing number of launch orders. For this purpose, in addition to the construction of their own facility, the joint use of existing launch sites in Virginia , California, Alaska and Florida would be examined. Several locations in Texas as well as areas in Florida , Georgia and Puerto Rico were considered for an own spaceport .

In April 2012, the responsible regulatory agency FAA initiated an environmental impact assessment for the Boca Chica site. Two months later, SpaceX began buying and leasing land in Cameron County , i.e. H. in Boca Chica Village and the surrounding area. By April 2013, the company had decided on Boca Chica as the only option for its own location. Some of the alternatives were logistically too unfavorable, some of the land was difficult to find or the rockets would have flown over populated areas. Another argument against Florida was that geographical diversification was desired. B. If a natural disaster does not affect several starting places. Aside from Puerto Rico, Boca Chica is also the southernmost plaza and therefore allows for the highest geostationary payloads.

In July 2014, the FAA certified the planned facility in Boca Chica Village as being environmentally friendly. At this point, SpaceX already owned at least 16 acres of land in Cameron County and had rented an additional 23 acres.

construction

Originally planned construction of the launch site, status 2014

The official start of construction was on September 22nd, 2014. Completion was initially announced for the end of 2016, but construction progressed only slowly in the first three years. The rock lay deeper than expected, so that the ground had to be paved at great expense. In addition, after the explosion of a Falcon 9 in September 2016, the SpaceX personnel was busy rebuilding the destroyed SLC-40 launch site on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station ; Furthermore, the space LC-39A , which had meanwhile been rented - also at Cape Canaveral - had to be prepared for the first launch of the Falcon Heavy . SpaceX had to repay part of the already paid € 0.4 million in subsidies because only 10 of the 60 jobs promised by the end of 2016 had been created.

Only in 2018 did the work in Boca Chica intensify. A tank farm and a launch site for test flights had been built by spring 2019 . In 2020, the focus will be on building Starship manufacturing. A production line for the series production of the spaceship is set up in several large tents and vertical hangars .

use

From April to August 2019, tests with the Starship- like experimental rocket Starhopper took place on the South Texas Launch Site . The aircraft was designed during the launch site construction on another SpaceX site in Boca Chica. It completed a short flight on July 26th and August 27th ( CEST ).

As of March 2020, there are over 500 employees on the site.

criticism

There is some distrust of SpaceX among residents of Boca Chica Village. Some are dissatisfied with the unrest that space operations are bringing to the remote village. Others fear the risk of missile launch errors. David Kanipe, former NASA engineer and associate professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University , criticized the distance of just three kilometers between the launch site and the village. At starts at Cape Caneveral , spectators would usually have to be at least three miles (almost five kilometers) from the action.

Instructions that SpaceX issued to the villagers in the summer of 2015 cause displeasure. Accordingly, they have to register in the county and carry ID cards and pass security checks on start days. Your freedom of movement could also be restricted during the starting time frame, which is up to 15 hours. In the following year, residents complained about inconsiderately driving construction site trucks, which endangered both people and houses. SpaceX replied that it had clarified the problems with the contracted company and that several truck drivers had been laid off.

In February 2018, Elon Musk upset local residents when he explained at a press conference why Boca Chica is the ideal place to test the new BFR missile : We've got a lot of land with nobody around and so, if it blows up, it's cool. (We have plenty of land and nobody is there, so if it explodes, everything is fine.) The company's information policy was also criticized. No information has been received about his further plans since 2016. SpaceX left unanswered questions from Houston Public Media , an institution of the University of Houston , about the local residents' complaints. A company spokesman stressed, however, that millions had already been invested in the project and in hiring workers.

SpaceX pushed through the purchase of houses in the village in 2019. Texan law probably also allows residents to sell because of the public interest in operating the spaceport.

Start list

As of August 6, 2020

Serial No. Date ( UTC ) rocket payload Altitude (km) Remarks
1 26th July 2019 Starhopper - 0.02 Success , test flight
2 27th August 2019 Starhopper - 0.15 Success , test flight
3 4th August 2020 Starship prototype (SN5) - 0.15 Success , test flight
2-3 Quarter of 2020 Starship prototype ? ≤ 20 planned test flight

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Capabilities & Services. SpaceX, accessed March 5, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i SpaceX Texas Launch Site Environmental Impact Statement , Volume I - Executive Summary and Chapters 1-14 , Chapter 2. Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Commercial Space Transportation, May 2014; accessed on March 5, 2018 (PDF; 5 MB)
  3. ↑ Eric Ralph: SpaceX job posts confirm Starship's Super Heavy booster will be built in Texas. In: Teslarati. February 16, 2019, accessed February 17, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Mitch Hagney: SpaceX: Bringing Rockets to South Texas . Rivard Report, August 12, 2017.
  5. ^ SpaceX, behind schedule on South Texas launchpad, seeks $ 5 million more in state funding . Dallas News / AP, Jan. 31, 2018.
  6. ↑ Lauren Etter: The Tiny Town That Hates Elon Musk . Bloomberg, September 9, 2015; Playback on financialpost.com.
  7. ↑ SpaceX Continues Texas Land Purchases in Subdivision Called 'Mars Crossing' . spaceref.biz, February 19, 2014.
  8. ↑ a b c Eric Berger: Inside Elon Musk's plan to build one Starship a week — and settle Mars . Ars Technica, March 5, 2020.
  9. ↑ Broadcast 2212: Special Edition, interview with Gwynne Shotwell. (Audio) The Space Show, March 21, 2013, archived from the original on March 20, 2014 ; accessed on March 22, 2014 : "... we are threading the needle a bit, both with the islands as well as the oil rigs, but it is still a good flight path to get commercial satellites to GEO."
  10. ↑ STARGATE to launch UTRGV as leader in space exploration research . The University of Texas System, September 22, 2014.
  11. ↑ Eric Ralph: SpaceX could begin testing its Mars rocket in Texas by late 2018, early 2019 . Teslarati, January 12, 2018.
  12. ↑ a b c Bob Sechler: Progress slow at SpaceX's planned South Texas spaceport. In: 512tech. November 21, 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2018 .
  13. ^ Robert Z. Pearlman: NASA Closes Historic Antenna Station That Tracked Every Space Shuttle Launch. In: space.com. August 2, 2011, accessed March 11, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Texas tries to woo SpaceX on launches . Los Angeles Daily News / Bloomberg, Feb. 13, 2014.
  15. ^ SpaceX Breaks Ground on Launch Site for Falcon Heavy. SpaceX, July 13, 2011, accessed May 10, 2017 .
  16. ↑ NPC Luncheon with Elon Musk . Lecture and Q&A with Elon Musk at the National Press Club on September 30, 2011, YouTube video, from minute 32:30.
  17. ^ A b SpaceX Searches for New Commercial Launch Site . SpaceX press release dated November 18, 2011.
  18. Jump up ↑ Dan Leone: Details Emerge on SpaceX's Proposed Texas Rocket Launch Site . space.com, April 10, 2018.
  19. ^ A b Draft Environmental Impact Statement SpaceX Texas Launch Site , Chapter 2.3.1; Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Commercial Space Transportation, April 2013; archived on December 7, 2013. (PDF; 8 MB)
  20. ↑ Emma Perez-Trevino: It's official: SpaceX selects Boca Chica Beach. In: Valley Star. August 4, 2014, accessed March 11, 2018 .
  21. ↑ Emma Perez-Trevino: SpaceX buys land. In: Valley Star. May 24, 2014, accessed March 11, 2018 .
  22. ↑ SpaceX breaks ground at Boca Chica beach. In: The Brownsville Herald. September 22, 2014, accessed May 10, 2017 .
  23. ↑ Chris Gebhardt: SpaceX aims for late-December launch of Falcon Heavy. In: NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved November 6, 2017 (American English).
  24. ↑ a b Eric Ralph: SpaceX confirms plan to activate South Texas launch site in late 2018. In: Teslarati. March 4, 2018, accessed on March 5, 2018 : "True orbital launch operations are thus highly unlikely to begin at Boca Chica any earlier than mid-to-late 2019 ..."
  25. ^ Thomas Burghardt: SpaceX gearing up for Starship tests at Boca Chica. In: nasaspaceflight.com. January 14, 2019, accessed January 14, 2019 .
  26. ↑ Chris Gebhardt: Starhopper conducts Raptor Static Fire test. In: Nasaspaceflight.com. April 3, 2019, accessed April 5, 2019 .
  27. ↑ Michael Bayler: SpaceX's Starhopper completes 150 meter test hop. In: Nasaspaceflight.com. August 27, 2019, accessed August 27, 2019 .
  28. ↑ a b Lauren Etter: Musk makes enemies fast in Texas town hosting Space-X Launches. In: Bloomberg News / Houston Chronicle. September 9, 2015, accessed March 11, 2018 .
  29. ↑ a b Tiffany Huertas: SpaceX construction causing problems for surrounding residents. In: ValleyCentral.com. May 19, 2016, accessed March 11, 2018 .
  30. ↑ Oscar Margain: SpaceX CEO's comments about a Texas launch site has upset a border community. THV11, February 16, 2018, accessed March 11, 2018 .
  31. ↑ Paul Flahive: Neighbors Concerned SpaceX Could Transform South Texas. In: Houston Public Media. University of Houston, March 5, 2018, accessed March 11, 2018 .
  32. ^ Maria Koren: Why SpaceX Wants a Tiny Texas Neighborhood So Badly . The Atlantic, February 11, 2020.
  33. ↑ SpaceX Starship prototype passes flight test. In: https://futurezone.at . August 5, 2020, accessed August 5, 2020 .
  34. ↑ SpaceX requests permission to fly new Starship rocket on 12-mile-high test flight . The Verge, February 4, 2020.

Coordinates: 25 ° 59 ′ 50 ″  N , 97 ° 9 ′ 24 ″  W.