SpaceX wants to build 1 Starship megarocket a day with new Starfactory

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"This will enable us to increase our production rate significantly as we build toward our long-term goal of producing one Ship per day."

workers on scaffolding in hard hats next to a giant metal rocket
Workers next to a SpaceX Starship as the sun sets behind them ahead of a launch from SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on April 18, 2023. (Image credit: Patrick T. Fallon /AFP/Getty Images)

Sure, the test flight of the world's most powerful rocket this week was nail-biting. But it was also a massive win for SpaceX with a successful fourth test for Starship.

The company's goals for this test flight were accomplished as Starship's first-stage booster, Super Heavy, made a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico and the 165-foot tall (50 m) upper stage, referred to simply as Ship, made a controlled landing burn during reentry before landing in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX now aims to build on the progress with its Starship program as continues work on Starfactory, a new manufacturing facility under construction at the company's Starbase site in South Texas. As it looks to use Starship to eventually make humanity interplanetary, SpaceX has stated the ambitious goal of producing one new Starship rocket every single day at the new facility.

Related: SpaceX Starship launches on nail-biting 4th test flight of world's most powerful rocket (video, photos)

"We have Ships and Super Heavy boosters built and either ready to launch or in testing for the next several flights with more coming off of the production line as SpaceX's Starfactory continues to grow," Jessie Anderson, SpaceX's Falcon Structures Manufacturing Engineering Manager, said during SpaceX's livestream of the Starship flight test Thursday. "The latest phase of the factory currently under construction will come online this summer, giving us several 100,000 more square feet of space."

The facility is part of SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, one of the first-ever commercial spaceports in the world devoted to a single vehicle; in this case, Starship. Once completed, the company's goal for the facility will be to create one Starship megarocket every day at Starfactory.

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"When you step into this factory, it is truly inspirational. My heart jumps out of my chest," Kate Tice, manager of SpaceX Quality Systems Engineering, said during the same livestream. "Now this will enable us to increase our production rate significantly as we build toward our long-term goal of producing one Ship per day and coming off the production line soon, Starship Version Two."

This new version of Starship is designed to be more easy to mass produce, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on social media. "Note, a newer version of Starship has the forward flaps shifted leeward. This will help improve reliability, ease of manufacturing and payload to orbit," Musk shared on X. 

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Meredith Garofalo
Meredith Garofalo
Contributing Writer

Meredith is a regional Murrow award-winning Certified Broadcast Meteorologist and science/space correspondent. She most recently was a Freelance Meteorologist for NY 1 in New York City & the 19 First Alert Weather Team in Cleveland. A self-described "Rocket Girl," Meredith's personal and professional work has drawn recognition over the last decade, including the inaugural Valparaiso University Alumni Association First Decade Achievement Award, two special reports in News 12's Climate Special "Saving Our Shores" that won a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award, multiple Fair Media Council Folio & Press Club of Long Island awards for meteorology & reporting, and a Long Island Business News & NYC TV Week "40 Under 40" Award.

27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • danR
    If they want an even greater output, they should stop assembling in rings and switch to rolling out the steel in long strips horizontally on a ginormous welding table and stir-welding the edges into a fuselage-sized single sheet, welding down the stringers in contiguous lengths, lifting it up vertically with a gantry, and wrapping it around ribs, dome, common dome, etc., held in a jig. This simple description applies to boosters. Starship-proper would then add fins and and nose-section.

    Given the huge horizontal floorspace of the factory under construction, all that would be needed for the above setup is vertical addition high enough to house the crane(s).

    Two or three starships would be under construction simultaneously, and the arrangement would be highly amenable to automation.
    Reply
  • DSyno
    danR said:
    If they want an even greater output, they should stop assembling in rings and switch to rolling out the steel in long strips horizontally on a ginormous welding table and stir-welding the edges into a fuselage-sized single sheet, welding down the stringers in contiguous lengths, lifting it up vertically with a gantry, and wrapping it around ribs, dome, common dome, etc., held in a jig. This simple description applies to boosters. Starship-proper would then add fins and and nose-section.

    Given the huge horizontal floorspace of the factory under construction, all that would be needed for the above setup is vertical addition high enough to house the crane(s).

    Two or three starships would be under construction simultaneously, and the arrangement would be highly amenable to automation.
    Ah, another armchair engineer.
    Reply
  • Merrick.spiers
    Elon is so far behind his promised schedule, and with such a huge need for refueling, that none of his promises should be taken uncritically. The government keeps lavishing money on him despite his many failures. More number crunching, please
    Reply
  • Temple
    But for Elon you 'd be riding Russian rockets up until a week ago.
    Reply
  • fj.torres
    What Musk is talking about is the upper stage, not the boosters. And they won't all be the crew version, either.
    And, as always, his "prediction" is aspirational. It won't be soon. It is important to understand Musk-ese.

    In the near term he will be building enough engines for two Starship v3 (9 engines) a month and 4 boosters a year. Which is enough for the near term markets. To get to one upper stage a day he'll need six more factories or 6x production rates.

    Neither is imposible but it won't be soon.
    Reply
  • CitizenSpace
    Merrick.spiers said:
    Elon is so far behind his promised schedule, and with such a huge need for refueling, that none of his promises should be taken uncritically. The government keeps lavishing money on him despite his many failures. More number crunching, please
    Starbase, Superheavy and Starship is privately funded. If not for SpaceX, we would still be paying the Russians to send our Astronauts to the ISS.
    Reply
  • Atropine
    This rocket impresses me in the technical sense. However, the words "at scale" and "10 million pounds of propellant per launch" give me some consternation. They aren't using hydralox; they're using methalox. Doing the math, it's something like 20 airliners burning their entire fuel loads in seven minutes all at once, in one place. Is it genuinely a good idea to scale this up until we're doing it hundreds of times a day?
    Reply
  • Bob_ATL
    Merrick.spiers said:
    Elon is so far behind his promised schedule, and with such a huge need for refueling, that none of his promises should be taken uncritically. The government keeps lavishing money on him despite his many failures. More number crunching, please
    Elon is often behind aspirational schedules. What is important is the aspirational aspect of the schedule and the fact that he is almost always directionally correct.

    Whether a spaceship a day occurs in 2028 or 2034 is not really material. What is important is the fact that this skilled, knowledgeable and rich person has a vision of needing 1,000+ reusable spaceships! This is at least a 3 order magnitude change fron 2010. An incredible rate of change in 25 years or so in the sleepy space business.

    It was way less than 25 years ago that 10,000+ satellite constellations were deemed economically and technologically impossible.

    The important things are the goals and the money and effort being spent to achieve these goals.

    Simply compare the time for Boeing to create a human transport capsule for existing rockets versus the Starship development cycle to date. Starship as a platform for heavy launch in single use mode is already finished. Most of the efforts going forward are for reusability.

    =======
    Starship in single use mode is now the most powerful rocket with a cost (not price) likely less than a third of any best case SLS cost scenario. This seems to have gone unnoticed.
    Reply
  • xuxa1
    No. I don't have the money.
    Reply
  • fj.torres
    Bob_ATL said:
    Starship as a platform for heavy launch in single use mode is already finished. Most of the efforts going forward are for reusability.

    =======
    Starship in single use mode is now the most powerful rocket with a cost (not price) likely less than a third of any best case SLS cost scenario. This seems to have gone unnoticed.
    Absolutely.
    And it is a game changer right there: single launch space stations, cheap space telescopes, large lunar and GEO platforms when you trade off payload for altitude.

    And the system is still in prototype mode.

    Worth remembering: SPACEX isn't just Musk. He has Shotwell and an army of top rank engineers. They are still building space launch infrastructure. Things get interesting once they pivot to building infrastructure in space.

    Another point that gets neglected: we get live telemetry and high bandwidth video even during reentry because Starship isn't transmitting groundwards but *up* to Starlink. Not so minor detail. And if they have enough bandwidth for HD video, they clearly have enough bandwidth for a thousand sensors. Bound to make iteration easier.
    Reply