On October 28, 2026, Elon Musk wrote on X that the proposed Starbase Louisiana site could support 10,000 Starship launches a year. He gave no date for reaching that rate, which is a projection rather than a record of launches.
The proposed site is near Pecan Island in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. NeoTeo’s earlier coverage of the Louisiana Starship megaspaceport introduced the project; Musk’s later statement put a specific annual launch figure on it.
What the FAA said about Louisiana licensing
An FAA spokesperson told WWL Louisiana on October 28, 2026, that SpaceX had not applied for a Louisiana Starship launch license. The spokesperson also said the FAA’s broader request for input on spaceport siting and priority airspace was separate from, and not directly related to, the Louisiana project.
The spokesperson said an exclusive-use site does not need a separate site-operator license, but SpaceX would still need a vehicle launch license. The reported application status is tied to the spokesperson’s October 28 statement.
The FAA’s 10,000 figure covers a different scope
The FAA estimate cited by Yahoo Finance is 10,000 launches and reentries combined across the United States per year by 2035. Musk’s figure concerns Starship launches from one proposed Louisiana site, with no target date. The matching number does not make the two figures equivalent.
The earlier figure and the daily arithmetic
WWL Louisiana reported that SpaceX representatives described an eventual capacity of 1,000 launches per year at the project’s August 2026 announcement. Musk’s later projection is ten times that earlier reported figure.
Spread evenly across 365 days, 10,000 launches a year works out to about 27.4 per day. A rate of 30 launches every day would equal 10,950 per year.
Yahoo Finance reported SpaceX targets construction in 2027 and a first Starship launch from Louisiana by 2029.
