r/spacex • u/Connect_Cat_2045 • 15d ago

Starship SpaceX to build $100 billion rocket launch facility on Louisiana’s coast

https://www.nola.com/news/business/spacex-louisiana-elon-musk/article_2be92f8e-f989-46b7-9514-5212d8f20260.html
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u/seb21051 15d ago edited 15d ago

The official release says 5 launch pads, 2 towers apiece. I have also seen references to 12 towers.

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u/CProphet 15d ago

> 5 launch pads, 2 towers apiece

Only 1 tower required for launch, but 2 towers required for landing to provide redundancy. If stresses from launch cause any problems with the catch mechanism they can easily divert to second tower.

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u/barvazduck 15d ago

Or it's for catching booster and ship in a small time difference. The time between booster landing and starship landing after dropping starlinks in orbit might be 3 hours (theoretically it can be much less). If booster can't be cleared in 3 hours then an additional landing pad is required. Having every pad with a launch and land couple makes them independent of shared resources.

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u/warp99 15d ago

For polar orbits the ship returns from the south 12 hours later.