SpaceX is still awaiting approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct their Starship orbital test flight from Boca Chica, Texas.
The flight was supposed to be approved last year, but was recently delayed until at least March 28, 2022.
During the Starship update presentation in February, CEO Elon Musk said that if the FAA delayed the approval again, there was a chance SpaceX would move the launch site to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
It appears Musk and SpaceX are hedging their bets after the first signs of a Starship launch tower were spotted this week at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
According to a photo taken during a bus tour of the site and shared on Twitter by @Arkvoodle55, a large crane can be seen with at least one section of the the launch tower already constructed.
When complete, it will stand around 400 feet tall, and will serve two purposes.
The first is to launch Starship into orbit, and the second is to catch the Falcon Heavy booster as it returns to Earth.
The launch and catch tower in Texas has already been completed, and was tested last month with the robotic arms, or chopsticks, stacking Starship atop the booster.
The whole procedure took a couple of hours to complete, and despite a few momentary pauses, went off without a hitch.
The launch tower at Starbase will help stack Starship and catch the Super Heavy rocket booster pic.twitter.com/xXmonamEDA
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 11, 2022
