The Suborbital Launch Site, located at Starbase, was a multi-purpose testing area, primarily the testing and early development of the Ship, Starship's second stage, including multiple suborbital flight tests. As indicated by its name, it was the primary launch site during Starship's suborbital flight testing campaign. Following the completion of the suborbital testing campaign, it was still used to conduct cryogenic proof tests and static fire tests for Ships, with gradually less testing occurred at the Suborbital Site. To accommodate orbital Ships, a quick disconnect was fitted on Pad B, Part of Super Heavy booster prototype BN3 remained welded to Pad A during this time, and was removed shortly before the pad itself was SpaceX since then moved cryogenic proof testing to the Massey Outpost, followed by all ship static firing testing to the Massey Outpost, rendering the site useless. Decommissioning began in December 2023 with the removal of Suborbital Pad A.
The Suborbital Launch Site was fully demolished in 2024, and its former location was used to now contains a new OLIT at Starbase, the OLIT #3, along with Orbital Pad B. All Ship and Booster tests, excluding full stack tests, have now been relocated to the Massey Outpost.
History[]
Originally, SpaceX conducted testing of suborbital prototypes at the Suborbital Launch Site, both for ground and flight testing purposes. The first free flying test hop took place on 25 July 2019 with Starhopper and the first high altitude flight test on December 9 2020 with SN8. Around this time, Suborbital Pad B joined Suborbital Pad A. However, following the successful flight of SN15 on May 5 2021, no further suborbital flights were conducted at this site. In total 4 low altitude hops and 5 high altitude flights occured from the site, with 2 occurring from Pad B and the rest from Pad A.
Upon completion of the suborbital flights, cryogenic testing for both ships and boosters was relocated to Massey Outpost on 5 May 2023. The landing site was then repurposed for tanks for the Orbital Launch Site following the flight of SN15.
SoL-A was decommissioned first, with SoLS-B following shortly after. Ship 30 was the final ship to use a suborbital pad, Today the former SoLS is the location for Orbital Pad-B/2/West.
Infrastructure[]
- SoLS tank farm
- SoLP-A
- SoLP-B
- GSE Bunker
- Earth wall (berm) between tank farm and pads
- Starhopper (functions as a water tower)
- Retrooms and support shed