Starship in Florida pushing for launch this year

Date:
Fri, 03 Jul 2026 21:26:45 +0000

Description:
Starship launches from Cape Canaveral are getting closer and closer as SpaceX and its contractors The post Starship in Florida pushing for launch this year appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

FULL STORY ======================================================================

Starship launches from Cape Canaveral are getting closer and closer as
SpaceX and its contractors continue to finish work on LC-39A and the Gigabay at Roberts Road. There has also been significant progress at SLC-37A, the fourth Starship pad to be built.

Full Collection of (100s) of photos from this flyover (and 100s of sets of previous flyovers) available to L2 members .

Roberts Road

The Gigabay at Roberts Road began around March of 2025, when the foundation was laid. Since then, crews have made tons of progress. As of July of 2026, the structural steel is finished, with the cladding and roof nearly
completed. So far, both smaller doors have been installed, with work proceeding on the two large doors where completed vehicles will roll out.

The penthouse section of the Gigabay, the final floor just before the roof, appears not to cover the entire footprint. There will be some areas where workers can look down into the aisles to see the vehicles being worked on below. It is unknown what SpaceX will be placing at this level; its possible for an updated launch control at Cape Canaveral, as the east-side view offers a clear view of every launch pad.

Work stands for the Gigabay are getting started as well, next to Hangar X-2. These are a different design from what SpaceX is currently using in Mega Bay
1 and Mega Bay 2 at Starbase. It will be easier to gain a better
understanding of their design for those built at Starbase, but the possible booster work stand now has only six arms instead of 10, as in Mega Bay 1.

Another interesting bit of hardware spotted in this area is a possible jig being worked on under a tent, which could be used to assist in breaking over boosters from horizontal to vertical and vice versa. Theres a pair of these
at the other end in Starbase.

There is also still launch pad work underway at Roberts Road; construction
of the SLC-37A launch mount has begun, with all eight first-level pieces now in place. This build, which has been completed twice now, has so far taken crews about six months to complete before rolling out to the pad. At least three of the four top deck deluge sections have been spotted so far. Also visible nearby are two of the manifolds needed to supply water to the top deck.

There are also valve skids and the arms for the chopstick carriage sitting around Roberts Road. These could be for either the Liquid Oxygen side of LC-39A or for SLC-37 when the construction gets that far. Finally, a pair of new buildings is going up on Roberts Road: one is Hangar X-3; the other
doesnt have a name. It is unknown exactly what these will be used for, or whether they could be warehouses or fabrication buildings.

LC-39A

Since work on LC-39A resumed in February 2025, the pad is likely just a few months away from becoming operational. For perspective, this build has not been slower or faster than Pad 2 at Starbase. While crews already had a tower and chopsticks at LC-39A, both were essentially empty shells.

A major indication that the pad is nearing operational status is that ridge cap and bucket deluge testing has begun. So far, only a few tests have been observed, but its a good sign as SpaceX needs to hone in on the new setup compared to Pad 2. At LC-39A, SpaceX has added additional gas generators to each water deluge subsystem.

This means the deflector buckets have five generators, the ridge cap has three, and the top deck has four. For reference, Pad 2 currently has four for the buckets, two for the ridge, and three for the top deck.

This is an upgrade that Pad 2 at Starbase will likely receive at a later date, once they have the downtime, while Pad 1 is likely to get the upgrade right away. Another upgrade to the deluge system at LC-39A is that, slightly beyond the flame trench exits, there are dips in the concrete that appear to have drainage at the bottom to help recapture as much unused deluge water as possible. SpaceX doesnt have the room to install a system like this at Starbase, but it could be installed at both planned SLC-37 pads. Some fantastic satellite imagery that Harry Stranger of SpaceFromSpace has
acquired for us!

These images were captured by SkySat C1 on 2026-07-02 13:10:29 UTC.

And also be sure to follow this link to check out these images on Harry's website: https://t.co/qDDpTcEmTY

First up, pic.twitter.com/feB2pgKTro

Jake (Max-Q) (@J_A_Rees_94) July 3, 2026



There was another major test completed recently as well; the ibproofen structural test and alignment tool was used on the launch mount. This piece
of tooling was built at Starbase to help load test and align all 20 hold-down arms and clamps. The tooling might stay at Cape Canaveral for use on SLC-37A or return to Starbase for Pad 1; however, both uses are at least 12 months away.

The service structure appears to have most, if not all, of its cladding in place; although this doesnt mean the interior is complete, as there could still be a lot of finishing work ongoing inside. The last few pieces needing to be installed are the methane booster quick disconnect (BQD) door, the back hoods of both BQDs, hooking up both BQDs, and then fully testing both.

Another big milestone is that the chopsticks are finally reeved, meaning
they can now move up and down the tower. The carriage for these chopsticks
was installed on the LC-39A tower in early February 2023, 2 months before Starship Flight 1 launched.

Taking a closer look at one of these chopsticks, we can also see that both parts of the stabilizer arm are installed; its likely that the other
chopstick has its stabilizer arm fully installed as well. The tower itself
has been stacked since September of 2022 and has recently begun receiving cladding, another major milestone in construction progress. The drawworks housing at the back of the tower base has been modified to include a sloped protective roof, as seen on the Starbase Pad 2 tower base.

Another area of interest is the blast wall thats been constructed to protect the tank farm from the extremely powerful launches. It is worth noting that more of this blast wall still needs to be constructed to reach the other end of the methane side of the tank farm.

And speaking of the tank farm, two additional Liquid Oxygen storage tanks were installed here a few months ago, bringing the total to six. There are still vacant spots for additional storage tanks on both the Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Methane sides of this tank farm, as well as for additional Liquid Nitrogen storage tanks on both sides.

SpaceX is also storing many extra parts near LC-39A, including several vaporizers and three of the smaller subcoolers that could very well end up being installed in the Methane side of the LC-39A tank farm. And just inside LC-39A are the three transport stands that were barged over from Starbase. These consist of two ship transport stands and a single booster transport stand, currently located in front of the Horizontal Integration Facility.

There are still many, many milestones to be completed for the LC-39A
Starship launch pad, such as OLM top-deck water deluge testing, full launch rehearsal retracts, vehicle tanking tests, and a booster static fire, to name a few.

Just recently, Booster 22 and Ship 42 began being stacked in their respective Mega Bays; if everything goes perfectly on Flights 13 and 14, those two could be headed for the Cape and stacked on LC-39As launch mount, possibly by the end of the year.

SLC-37

SpaceXs second Starship launch complex, located at SLC-37, is progressing with construction. So far at SLC-37A, the LR13000 crane has stacked four out of nine modules for that tower. Each module for this tower was outfitted with more hardware before stacking than the other three towers SpaceX has stacked so far, thanks to the awesome power of the LR13000 crawler crane.

Also, the flame trench for this pad has been fully excavated, and rebar installation for the 3 sections of the trench floor is underway. As for the other major components at SLC-37, the Ship Quick Disconnect arm, chopsticks, and carriage for SLC-37A are all being worked on off to the side. The
Carriage and chopstick arms were assembled months ago at Roberts Road, then transported to SLC-37.

It is worth mentioning, though, that these rolled to SLC-37 in a fairly bare state, so theres still a lot more work to be done on them at this site before they can be installed on the tower.

Three deluge tanks and three large subcoolers have also arrived here and are awaiting installation in their respective locations within the launch
complex. Pedestals for all the deluge tanks have been moved into place in the speculated deluge farm location, and pedestals for storage tanks on one side of the speculated tank farm area have been moved into place as well, as
SpaceX is likely waiting for several orders of cryogenic storage tanks to arrive over the next few years.

There is also a lot of groundwork occurring near the SLC-37A tower modules that are still due to be stacked; this groundwork is believed to be the location of SLC-37B, the second starship pad at this launch complex

Additionally, new electrical work is underway along one side of the speculated tank farm; well see much more of this across the rest of SLC-37 as SpaceX continues to develop the site for its two planned Starship launch
pads.

Its going to be a few years before even one of these launch pads is online, due to wait times for cryogenic storage tanks and other hardware.

Featured Image: Roberts Road with the VAB, LC-39A and B in the background (Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF/L2).



The post Starship in Florida pushing for launch this year appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/07/starship-florida-pushing-launch/


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