SpaceX has just made its own Louisiana Purchase.
President and COO Gwynne Shotwell joined Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Tuesday to announce Starbase, Louisiana—a high-cadence launch site for future Starship operations.
The new site marks another step toward commercial Starship operations. Earlier Tuesday, the last Falcon 9 Starlink mission flew from Cape Canaveral. All future Florida Starlink missions will fly on Starship, the company announced, although Falcon 9 will continue launching Starlinks from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
“There are few places on Earth where we can do what we need to do to launch Starship fully reusable at rate, meaning thousands of launches a year,” SpaceX VP of Starship Legal & Regulatory Sheila McCorkle said in a promotional video.
“You’ve got to have a place on the coast where there aren’t a lot of folks near where you’re going to build your launch pads. You need ample gas, and you need the right trajectories… Louisiana happens to be a perfect candidate.”
Bayou billions: A spaceport doesn’t come cheap. SpaceX pledged to invest $100B in Starbase, Louisiana on the Gulf Coast. Construction is set to begin next year, with the facility hosting the first launches in 2029.
The site will:
- Include five launch complexes, each with two launch pads and a propellant farm;
- Self-sustain with propellant production, power generation, deep-water shipping, vehicle processing, residential housing, and an airport;
- Create 3,000+ jobs—though Musk and Shotwell both estimated the figure could reach 10,000.
Muddy waters: The announcement follows a federal judge’s dismissal of a Louisiana lawsuit against ExxonMobil for coastal damages—freeing up roughly 130,000 acres of Exxon land for the spaceport.
Landry framed the deal as a break from the state’s history. For generations, he said, industries came to Louisiana to extract rather than to build. SpaceX, he said, instead offers the Pelican State “a permanent future and lasting prosperity.”
Still, a project of this scale in one of the country’s most fragile ecosystems carries environmental risk.
Shotwell addressed the concerns head-on, noting that the $100B investment covers more than launch infrastructure. She said the company will partner with state and federal agencies to expand Louisiana’s coastal master plan, including:
- Shoreline protection, marsh restoration, and wildlife conservation;
- Thousands of acres of water creation to reconnect fragmented wetlands;
- Restoring the natural storm buffer that has eroded along the coast due to rising water levels and human activities;
- Preserving wetlands for hunting, fishing, birding, and boating.
“In 1803, Louisiana gave America a continent,” Landry said during the press briefing. “Today, Louisiana and SpaceX will give America the stars.”
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