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Multi-billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has announced that it will build its largest launch site yet in the southern US state of Louisiana.<\/b><\/p>\n
Construction of the $100bn (\u00a373bn) project – named Starbase, Louisiana – is due to start next year, with the 125,000-acre (50,585-hectare) site expanding on the company’s operations beyond its current Texas headquarters and locations in Florida.<\/p>\n
It will be used to “support thousands of Starship flights a year with missions launching to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond,” SpaceX said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
In June, SpaceX shares started trading on New York’s technology-focused Nasdaq in the world’s biggest ever stock market debut<\/a>.<\/p>\n SpaceX said it aims to launch its first Starship flight from the new Louisiana base in 2029.<\/p>\n The facility will add more than 3,000 jobs to the region, the company said, external<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n The Louisiana Economic Development agency said the average wage of workers at the base – the largest of its kind in the world – would be 192% more than the region’s current average salary.<\/p>\n It will also create more than 8,100 new jobs indirectly, the agency estimated. <\/b><\/p>\n “The historic project will establish Louisiana as a global hub for next-generation aerospace, with the capacity and infrastructure needed to dramatically increase launch frequency and expand access to space,” it added.<\/p>\n The facility in Louisiana will share its name with another SpaceX site on the southern tip of Texas.<\/p>\n In 2025, residents in an area of Cameron County, where the company has testing and development operations, approved incorporating the patch of land as a city called Starbase<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n