SpaceX is completing a Starfactory at the Boca Chica spaceport to make one Starship a day

The Starbase production site is expanding with the addition of Starfactory, which is expected to help SpaceX's plans to manufacture at least one megarocket per day.

The construction cost of Starfactory, which will occupy 9,290 square meters of factory space at Starbase, reaches $100 million.

Following an extremely successful fourth test flight of the Starship (both stages were successfully landed), Kate Tyce, SpaceX Quality Systems Development Manager, announced plans to manufacture one such rocket per day and the upcoming release of the Starship Version 2 from the production line.

The Starship Version 2 is designed for easier and more mass production (precisely at the new Starfactory) and, rumor has it, it contains more fuel, has a lower dry weight (without fuel), is more reliable, and has some aerodynamic changes (particularly in the fins - one of them melted during the fourth flight).

Note, a newer version of Starship has the forward flaps shifted leeward. This will help improve reliability, ease of manufacturing and payload to orbit.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2024

This timelapse shows the process of building Starfactory in May:

Time-lapse of a Siller Helicopter, nicknamed "StarChopper" by the @NASASpaceflight Starbase Live Chat, delivering multiple A/C units to the roof of the Starfactory for installation. S30 can be seen in the back moving into the High Bay.
Follow along Live: https://t.co/wTIGOIV9NOpic.twitter.com/7AGSoAfokg

— Elisar Priel (@ENNEPS) May 11, 2024

For Elon Musk, the Starship in perspective is a spaceship that will transport people to Mars, while NASA primarily plans to use it as a lunar lander that will deliver astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. In the near future, SpaceX also plans to use Starship for deploying the next generation of Starlink internet satellites.

In the end, Starship will have to undergo many more test flights (Musk has announced at least 6 in 2024) before starting real work (including achieving the goal of landing both stages back on the launch pad), but overall all four flights (especially the last one) can be called successful - now we await the data analysis from the SpaceX team.

Jesse Anderson, Engineering Manager of Falcon Structures Manufacturing at SpaceX, announced that the ships and boosters for the next tests have already been built.