SpaceX indicates it will manufacture the BFR rocket in Los Angeles

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/spacex-indicates-it-will-manufacture-the-bfr-rocket-in-los-angeles/

by rbanffy • 8 years ago

112 43 8 years ago

headcanon• 8 years ago

I'm sure they have their reasons, but it seems a bit odd to do it there instead of in Brownsville TX, where they already have facilities, and its on the same side of the continent as Florida, meaning they don't have to ship them across the Panama Canal.

Its possible that their rocket-building expertise resides in LA and they want to keep it close to home, and shipping the rockets isn't as much a concern.

nbadg• 8 years ago

I wouldn't exclude the possibility that the eventual plan is to do both -- or to manufacture the BFR (the rocket part) in one location, and the BFS (the spaceship part) in the other. The article does mention that the LA location is intended to be able to receive (and presumably service) recovered vehicles, which would make a lot of sense for droneship landing after a Vandenberg launch.

At any rate, I personally haven't heard any speculation about them moving BFS testing outside of Texas, but /r/spacex might very well be the most reliable way to find out (unless you're a SpaceX employee!)

mkempe• 8 years ago

Is the BFR also expected to land on droneships?

mikeash2• 8 years ago

Shipping is less of a concern for a fully reusable system. Instead of shipping a giant rocket for every launch, you ship it once and use it for dozens or hundreds of launches.

isostatic3• 8 years ago

Launch it from LA and land it in Florida for the test flight?

tjoff• 8 years ago

You still need to inspect it after each launch and perhaps repair? I'd imagine there would be some overlap with manufacturing if only for the expertise.

_ph_• 8 years ago

As far as I know, all SpaceX rockets so far have been made in their Hawthorne facilites and the new ones are just 20 minutes away. So they can either just move workers to the new facilities or at least keep the staff of both in close contact. Also Elon usually is either in Freemont or in Hawthorne, her certainly doesn't want to add more travel to his schedules.

stetrain3• 8 years ago

As I understand it basically all of their existing engineering staff works at their Hawthorn, CA complex, so this is the closest location to that which will allow them to ship by water.

So far their prototype giant carbon fiber tanks have been manufactured at a partner's facility in Washington state so this should allow them to receive those shipments pretty easily.

https://www.goskagit.com/news/local_news/spacex-fuel-tank-le...

simonh• 8 years ago

For now yes, but it looks like SpaceX are considering doing at least some manufacturing in Texas in the long run.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-mars-rocket-factory-south-t...

adenadel• 8 years ago

Wow, so strange to see my hometown's newspaper on HN.

panzagl• 8 years ago

I would take it to mean they anticipate more launches from Vandenberg.

avs7332• 8 years ago

Which has constraints on both see and land routes into it.

There are (afaik) no options to unload sea freight at vafb. And the roads to vafb are not great.

sq_3• 8 years ago

Based on the info in the r/spacex thread where all of this was first posted, it seems like this facility is mostly for developing the prototypes of the BFR/BFS before the vehicle goes into full production.

My guess is that your second thought about their rocket building expertise being in LA caused them to choose LA for the prototyping and that a BFR/BFS factory at Boca Chica or Cape Canaveral is still a distinct possibility.

ufmace• 8 years ago

Source for this seems to be this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/85i6rd/bfr_producti...

11thEarlOfMar• 8 years ago

I'm wondering what this does for the LA economy. If SpaceX is successful in it's multiple missions, both Mars and global Internet, it would create many high-paying jobs and begin to restore the losses from aerospace [0].

[0] See slides 6 & 7: https://laedc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/KimberlyRitterM...

bhauer• 8 years ago

Well, certainly SpaceX has done a lot for the city I call home, Hawthorne. It makes me happy when I hear their mission control cited as "Hawthorne Control."

We also now have the Boring Company test tunnel going in under 120th Street. Some of the people I work with joke about the tunnel cutting their commute from Hawthorne to El Segundo from 5 minutes to 2 minutes. (Of course this tunnel is just for testing, but it's still fun to joke about.)

greglindahl• 8 years ago

Most of the job losses in that slide deck are from automating production and are never coming back -- SpaceX's manufacturing is as automated as you'd expect for their production volume.

Also, it's worth noting that SpaceX's Starlink folks are in the Seattle area.

shas3• 8 years ago

Rockets have been made in and around LA for ages. It is a defense industry hub, arguably the biggest outside DC area. Overview: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-socal-aerospace-201607...

SpaceX indicates it will manufacture the BFR rocket in Los Angeles

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