SpaceX is still working towards a new expanded Starship presence at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Part of that will be a massive new structure that will rival NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building on the space coast horizon, called GigaBay.
Down in Starbase, Texas, SpaceX has built some massive buildings to construct its Starship rocket. At first, the company used tents and a windbreak to build its suborbital test vehicles, but SpaceX has moved to a fully functional rocket factory with large vertical assembly buildings.
First was the High Bay, which is currently used to stack ship segments and get them ready for launches. Second was the MegaBay, which is used to do the same thing for Starship’s booster. Both of these bays can hold as many as four rocket stages.
Over on the Space Coast, SpaceX has operated its Roberts Road facility for a few years now. The company has consolidated the bulk of its launch and refurbishment operations into what is called “Hangar X.”
In the last year, SpaceX has begun an expansion project north of the current facility and has set up a new temporary tent, similar to what we saw at Starbase in the past. To get a sense of scale, the new expansion of Roberts Road will be as large as Starbase’s manufacturing facility.
What will be the centerpiece of the expansion is the GigaBay. Following Tesla’s naming scheme for its facilities and batteries, the GigaBay will be larger than the MegaBay and be able to assemble and store multiple MegaBays’ worth of Starship rockets.
The first time we saw GigaBay officially show up by SpaceX was in a job posting on the company’s website before being renamed to remove its reference to the yet-built building. Now a new FAA document confirms its existence and that it’s current status as “In Progress.”
The GigaBay would measure in at about 360 feet long, 426 feet wide, and 377 feet tall. While smaller than NASA’s VAB, it will likely become one of the major skyline features of the space coast alongside the VAB and Blue Origin‘s LC-36.
While launches of Starship from Florida aren’t yet planned for a while, LC-39A will likely be the home of its most important missions, like Artemis lunar lander flights and missions to Mars.
