SpaceX wants its own gas pipeline to fuel Starship
Most rocket companies buy their fuel. SpaceX wants to pipe it in. Filings in Texas show the company plans to build its own natural gas pipeline, an unusual move for a space firm, and a telling one.
SpaceX calls the line Starpipe. It would run eight miles, about 13km, to Starbase, SpaceX’s company town on the Texas coast, and feed the next-generation Starship rocket. Reuters reported the plan, citing county filings, and said construction could begin next month.
An affiliate, Lone Star Mineral Development, filed the project last month with the Texas Railroad Commission, according to documents Reuters reviewed. Starpipe should enter service by 26 January. The Rio Grande Valley Business Journal first reported the pipeline.
The reason is logistics. Starship burns about 630,000 gallons, some 2.4 million litres, of liquid methane per launch. Today that arrives by the truckload, hundreds of tankers in an hours-long crawl. That pace cannot...
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