Starship launches from Cape Canaveral are getting nearer and nearer as SpaceX and its contractors proceed to complete work on LC-39A and the Gigabay at Roberts Street. There has additionally been important progress at SLC-37A, the fourth Starship pad to be constructed.
Roberts Street
The Gigabay at Roberts Street started round March of 2025, when the inspiration was laid. Since then, crews have made tons of progress. As of July of 2026, the structural metal is completed, with the cladding and roof almost accomplished. To this point, each smaller doorways have been put in, with work continuing on the 2 massive doorways the place accomplished autos will roll out.
The “penthouse” part of the Gigabay, the ultimate flooring simply earlier than the roof, seems to not cowl the whole footprint. There shall be some areas the place staff can look down into the aisles to see the autos being labored on under. It’s unknown what SpaceX shall be inserting at this stage; it’s potential for an up to date launch management at Cape Canaveral, because the east-side view presents a transparent view of each launch pad.
Work stands for the Gigabay are getting began as effectively, subsequent to Hangar X-2. These are a unique design from what SpaceX is at the moment utilizing in Mega Bay 1 and Mega Bay 2 at Starbase. It will likely be simpler to realize a greater understanding of their design for these constructed at Starbase, however the potential booster work stand now has solely six arms as an alternative of 10, as in Mega Bay 1.
One other attention-grabbing little bit of {hardware} noticed on this space is a potential jig being labored on underneath a tent, which may very well be used to help in breaking over boosters from horizontal to vertical and vice versa. There’s a pair of those on the different finish in Starbase.
There’s additionally nonetheless launch pad work underway at Roberts Street; building of the SLC-37A launch mount has begun, with all eight first-level items now in place. This construct, which has been accomplished twice now, has to date taken crews about six months to finish earlier than rolling out to the pad. At the least three of the 4 prime deck deluge sections have been noticed to date. Additionally seen close by are two of the manifolds wanted to produce water to the highest deck.
There are additionally valve skids and the arms for the chopstick carriage sitting round Roberts Street. These may very well be for both the Liquid Oxygen aspect of LC-39A or for SLC-37 when the development will get that far. Lastly, a pair of latest buildings goes up on Roberts Street: one is Hangar X-3; the opposite doesn’t have a reputation. It’s unknown precisely what these shall be used for, or whether or not they may very well be warehouses or fabrication buildings.
LC-39A
Since work on LC-39A resumed in February 2025, the pad is probably going just some months away from changing into operational. For perspective, this construct has not been slower or quicker than Pad 2 at Starbase. Whereas crews already had a tower and chopsticks at LC-39A, each have been basically empty shells.
A significant indication that the pad is nearing operational standing is that ridge cap and bucket deluge testing has begun. To this point, just a few checks have been noticed, but it surely’s a very good signal as SpaceX must hone in on the brand new setup in comparison with Pad 2. At LC-39A, SpaceX has added further gasoline turbines to every water deluge subsystem.
This implies the deflector buckets have 5 turbines, the ridge cap has three, and the highest deck has 4. For reference, Pad 2 at the moment has 4 for the buckets, two for the ridge, and three for the highest deck.
That is an improve that Pad 2 at Starbase will seemingly obtain at a later date, as soon as they’ve the downtime, whereas Pad 1 is prone to get the improve immediately. One other improve to the deluge system at LC-39A is that, barely past the flame trench exits, there are dips within the concrete that seem to have drainage on the backside to assist recapture as a lot unused deluge water as potential. SpaceX doesn’t have the room to put in a system like this at Starbase, but it surely may very well be put in at each deliberate SLC-37 pads.
Some unbelievable satellite tv for pc imagery that Harry Stranger of SpaceFromSpace has acquired for us!
These photographs have been captured by SkySat C1 on 2026-07-02 13:10:29 UTC.
And likewise make sure you comply with this hyperlink to take a look at these photographs on Harry's web site:
First up,… pic.twitter.com/feB2pgKTro
— Jake (Max-Q)
(@J_A_Rees_94) July 3, 2026
(@J_A_Rees_94) There was one other main check accomplished not too long ago as effectively; the ibproofen structural check and alignment instrument was used on the launch mount. This piece of tooling was constructed at Starbase to assist load check and align all 20 hold-down arms and clamps. The tooling would possibly keep at Cape Canaveral to be used on SLC-37A or return to Starbase for Pad 1; nonetheless, each makes use of are no less than 12 months away.
The service construction seems to have most, if not all, of its cladding in place; though this doesn’t imply the inside is full, as there might nonetheless be quite a lot of ending work ongoing inside. The previous couple of items needing to be put in are the methane booster fast disconnect (BQD) door, the again hoods of each BQDs, hooking up each BQDs, after which totally testing each.
One other large milestone is that the chopsticks are lastly reeved, that means they’ll now transfer up and down the tower. The carriage for these chopsticks was put in on the LC-39A tower in early February 2023, 2 months earlier than Starship Flight 1 launched.
Taking a better take a look at certainly one of these chopsticks, we will additionally see that each elements of the stabilizer arm are put in; it’s seemingly that the opposite chopstick has its stabilizer arm totally put in as effectively. The tower itself has been stacked since September of 2022 and has not too long ago begun receiving cladding, one other main milestone in building progress. The drawworks housing in the back of the tower base has been modified to incorporate a sloped protecting roof, as seen on the Starbase Pad 2 tower base.
One other space of curiosity is the blast wall that’s been constructed to guard the tank farm from the extraordinarily highly effective launches. It’s price noting that extra of this blast wall nonetheless must be constructed to achieve the opposite finish of the methane aspect of the tank farm.
And talking of the tank farm, two further Liquid Oxygen storage tanks have been put in right here a number of months in the past, bringing the entire to 6. There are nonetheless vacant spots for added storage tanks on each the Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Methane sides of this tank farm, in addition to for added Liquid Nitrogen storage tanks on each side.
SpaceX can also be storing many additional elements close to LC-39A, together with a number of vaporizers and three of the smaller subcoolers that might very effectively find yourself being put in within the Methane aspect of the LC-39A tank farm. And simply inside LC-39A are the three transport stands that have been barged over from Starbase. These encompass two ship transport stands and a single booster transport stand, at the moment situated in entrance of the Horizontal Integration Facility.
There are nonetheless many, many milestones to be accomplished for the LC-39A Starship launch pad, reminiscent of OLM top-deck water deluge testing, full launch rehearsal retracts, automobile tanking checks, and a booster static fireplace, to call a number of.
Only in the near past, Booster 22 and Ship 42 started being stacked of their respective Mega Bays; if the whole lot goes completely on Flights 13 and 14, these two may very well be headed for the Cape and stacked on LC-39A’s launch mount, presumably by the top of the yr.
SLC-37
SpaceX’s second Starship launch advanced, situated at SLC-37, is progressing with building. To this point at SLC-37A, the LR13000 crane has stacked 4 out of 9 modules for that tower. Every module for this tower was outfitted with extra {hardware} earlier than stacking than the opposite three towers SpaceX has stacked to date, due to the superior energy of the LR13000 crawler crane.
Additionally, the flame trench for this pad has been totally excavated, and rebar set up for the three sections of the ditch flooring is underway. As for the opposite main elements at SLC-37, the Ship Fast Disconnect arm, chopsticks, and carriage for SLC-37A are all being labored on off to the aspect. The Carriage and chopstick arms have been assembled months in the past at Roberts Street, then transported to SLC-37.
It’s price mentioning, although, that these rolled to SLC-37 in a reasonably naked state, so there’s nonetheless much more work to be finished on them at this web site earlier than they are often put in on the tower.
Three deluge tanks and three massive subcoolers have additionally arrived right here and are awaiting set up of their respective places inside the launch advanced. Pedestals for all of the deluge tanks have been moved into place within the speculated deluge farm location, and pedestals for storage tanks on one aspect of the speculated tank farm space have been moved into place as effectively, as SpaceX is probably going ready for a number of orders of cryogenic storage tanks to reach over the following few years.
There’s additionally quite a lot of groundwork occurring close to the SLC-37A tower modules which are nonetheless on account of be stacked; this groundwork is believed to be the situation of SLC-37B, the second starship pad at this launch advanced
Moreover, new electrical work is underway alongside one aspect of the speculated tank farm; we’ll see far more of this throughout the remainder of SLC-37 as SpaceX continues to develop the location for its two deliberate Starship launch pads.
It’s going to be a number of years earlier than even certainly one of these launch pads is on-line, on account of wait instances for cryogenic storage tanks and different {hardware}.
Featured Picture: Roberts Street with the VAB, LC-39A and B within the background (Credit score: Julia Bergeron for NSF/L2).
The put up Starship in Florida pushing for launch this yr appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.
