SpaceX’s Starship Fuel Problem at the Cape Just Got Solved

Starship venting on the pad at Starbase during propellant loading, the kind of fuel demand SpaceX says trucks can’t keep up with. Credit: SpaceX.

Florida regulators have approved the tariff for Coastal Connect Services, a SpaceX subsidiary that plans to build a 32.4-mile natural gas pipeline in Brevard County to feed the company’s Starship launch pads at Cape Canaveral.

The Florida Public Service Commission signed off at its October 6 agenda conference, as its staff had recommended in Docket No. 20260094-GU. The 16-inch steel line would carry gas from the Florida Gas Transmission interstate pipeline to SpaceX, which has contracted for all of its planned capacity.

Right now, SpaceX trucks the natural gas for its Cape launch pads in as liquefied natural gas. Coastal Connect told regulators in a July data request response that this takes “hundreds of truckloads of LNG per launch,” with volumes expected to climb as SpaceX flies more often and on larger vehicles.

SpaceX liquefies that gas for use as rocket fuel, and the methane it contains is what powers Starship, the company’s fully reusable launch system. In a September filing, Coastal Connect said trucking LNG “is not a viable long-term strategy” given the gas volumes involved and the growth in launches SpaceX expects.

SpaceX is building two Starship pads on the Space Coast, one at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and another at Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Coastal Connect’s filings name both pads as the pipeline’s required delivery points. SpaceX launch chief Kiko Dontchev shared this photo of the newly stacked SLC-37 tower in August.

Coastal Connect says the line will tap Florida Gas Transmission about 1.5 miles east of the Indian River and southwest of State Highway 528, the Beachline Expressway. The company is targeting an August 2027 in-service date and called approval essential for SpaceX’s “projected launch schedule beginning later in 2027.”

Florida City Gas, the local utility that already serves the Cape Canaveral area, moved to intervene in August and argued that its existing investment around the spaceport could be stranded and that it plans further expansion there, including delivery points that could serve SpaceX. Coastal Connect countered that the utility’s 12-inch line to Kennedy Space Center lacks the capacity SpaceX needs and sits more than a mile from both Starship pads.

Commission staff called the intervention bid premature, since a formal protest can only be filed after the Commission issues its order. Staff also noted the tariff bars Coastal Connect from serving existing gas customers or sites within one mile of a utility’s gas facilities.

The filings leave several key details out, including a construction cost and a start date for work, and the exact route is still being worked out around available rights of way. SpaceX’s contracted volumes and rates sit in a transportation agreement that was refiled with confidential information redacted.

The approval still has one more step before it’s final, since the Commission’s written order is due October 26 and anyone whose substantial interests are affected will have 21 days after it is issued to file a protest. If no protest comes, the docket closes with a consummating order.

If Coastal Connect hits its August 2027 target, the convoys of LNG tankers rolling up to SpaceX’s pads could give way to a single steel line, just as the company works to make Starship a regular sight on the Space Coast.