Pecan Island near the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana will soon become the property of Elon Musk's company. There will be a new spaceport for Starship, almost 20 times larger than in Boca Chica, where there are already two launch pads. The unique location will allow the company to try to achieve the ambitious goal of launching one million low-orbit satellites into atypical orbits for modern cosmonautics.
A few months ago, SpaceX announced a plan for the massive deployment of orbital data centers in space. To implement them, it is necessary to put about a million satellites into orbit. Let us recall that in the pre-Soviet era, mankind never had even ten thousand satellites. And even today, minus its own Starlink satellites, humanity does not have even eight thousand satellites in low-Earth orbit. The scale of the project is quite clear from these figures, and it undoubtedly has no precedent in world history.
The unprecedented scale creates unprecedented challenges. Currently, SpaceX has only three operating and under construction launch pads for the Starship rocket, without which launching data centers into orbit is unrealistic (satellites of this class will be too large). A million satellites in low orbits will require a double-digit number of launch pads. In addition, the company's current launch desks are optimized for launches into equatorial orbits, where most of the Earth's satellites are located. And for orbital data centers, completely different orbits are needed - solar synchronous ones.
In such orbits — which go closer to the poles of the Earth, almost perpendicular to the equator — the satellite passes over the same areas of the Earth at the same solar time. Due to this, it can be in the shadow not for half a turn, as in conventional orbits (close to the equatorial ones), but only 20 percent of the turn or slightly less. This dramatically reduces the capacity requirements of its onboard batteries. Accordingly, the weight and cost of the device decreases.
SpaceX's current sites in Boca Chica (Starbase, Texas) and Florida are poorly suited for launches into polar orbits. With them, the rocket is forced to enter a polar orbit over densely populated areas of Latin America (or over even more densely populated areas of the United States). Although the accident rate of SpaceX rockets after their launch is the lowest in world history (according to the Falcon 9 experience), regulatory agencies will still not be thrilled with such a route, and the probability of accidents is never strictly zero.
Pecan Island, where SpaceX is completing the acquisition of 526 square kilometers of land, is a completely different story. It is located at a point from which entering a sun-synchronous orbit requires flying over a minimal part of the Latin American land (a relatively short segment over southern Mexico). Moreover, the distance to it from the starting point will be so great that the chances of any of the steps falling there tend to zero. And in the Gulf of Mexico itself, the probability of hitting people with a fallen step or damaging their property is extremely low.
Other advantages of the island are its very low population density, and one that is unlikely to cling to living here. The extremely few Cajuns living here are descended from the descendants of French-speaking Canadians deported by the British colonial authorities to Louisiana (half of them died in the holds on the way). These people are traditionally poor, and their village was regularly devastated by hurricanes and now does not even have a school. They will be inclined to relocate even with not very large compensations for the lands surrounding them. The likelihood of litigation with them due to the noise of rockets taking off is therefore relatively low.
Another advantage is that the island lies next to the Coastal Channel. It is the longest shipping channel in the world, running for 4,800 kilometers along the coast of the United States. The part of it that runs along the Gulf of Mexico is mostly protected from sea waves by barrier islands, such as Pecan Island. Therefore, heavily loaded barges with moderate-capacity tugs can pass through the canal. That is, even very large objects can be transported inexpensively and without interruptions due to storms. Considering that Starship is still being built in Boca Chica, from where it is a long way to Louisiana, the presence of such a message is quite important.
Finally, not far from Pecan Island is the Henry Hub, an intersection of 13 different gas pipelines from various natural gas fields. Starship uses methane as fuel, and for many thousands of launches per year, methane consumption should exceed one million tons. It would be problematic to obtain such a volume in any other place in the United States except Henry Hub without serious investments in gas-supplying infrastructure.
