16.08.2026
New documents show SpaceX plans to extend its Roberts Road Facility even further to support upcoming Starship launches from Kennedy Space Center.
A recent permit filed with the St. Johns River Water Management District outlines a request to begin “Project Ignition”. Located near SpaceX’s facilities just beyond the gates at Kennedy Space Center, and south of Schwartz Road, the 101-acre development would be for testing of the company’s massive Starship rocket.
Currently, SpaceX only launches the enormous Starship from Starbase, Texas, but the first Florida launch could come as soon as the end of the year from either Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center or Launch Complex 37 in Cape Canaveral.
Planned to eventually be fully reusable, the company’s new launch system is tapped to support missions well beyond SpaceX’s ambitions, including NASA’s Artemis return to the moon. SpaceX will provide the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) for NASA's upcoming Artemis moon landing, which will be launched on Starship and dock with the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit.
A modified Starship will dock with Orion in orbit next year during the Artemis III mission, a test before the actual moon landing.
“The proposed development would include a static test stand and associated infrastructure to verify post-production testing of Starship and to support static fire tests,” a document states.
SpaceX already has the giant "Gigabay" coming onboard at the Roberts Road site, which will be used to stack and prepare the 232-foot-tall Super Heavy boosters (lower stages) before Florida launches.
Quelle: Florida Today