SpaceX Moving Landings to West Coast and Expanding in Long Beach

‘Space Beach’ continues to bring hope to Long Beach for future jobs and aerospace innovation – with SpaceX adding more to it. That space transportation company is moving its Dragon spacecraft splashdowns from off the coast of Florida to the West Coast starting next year, Long Beach city officials said on July 28.

That means SpaceX will be expanding its Port of Long Beach facility at Pier T from just over six acres to 15 acres. It will come from both dry and submerged land, and office and manufacturing space.

The Pier T facility is used for SpaceX’s recovery operations of Falcon 9 rockets. These rockets have boosters that can land vertically, and can be reused after delivering their payload. The company named the site West Coast Recovery Operations Hub.

SpaceX has renewed its lease for another five years with Long Beach.

SpaceX says that a Dragon recovery vessel will move to the Pacific Ocean. SpaceX can direct its Falcon 9 space travel rockets to splashdown in the Pacific close to Long Beach. The recovery vessel will retrieve it.

Existing SpaceX facilities in the Port of Long Beach will support initial post-flight work and operations on the Dragon. After making the ocean splashdown, crew and cargo will be in California ahead of their final destinations. Those final destinations will include Houston or Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Much of the Dragon refurbishment will continue to primarily take place at its Dragon processing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare the Dragon spacecraft for its next flight, the company said.

Is SpaceX Leaving California?

Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, posted on X (formerly Twitter) last month that he plans on moving SpaceX from its Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters over to Texas. Another one of his company’s, X, will be moved from its San Francisco office to Texas, as well, he posted on the social media page.

Musk said it was in response to a law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom that bars school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child’s gender identification change, which he called the “final straw.”

Musk said SpaceX will go to Starbase, Texas, and X will move its headquarters to Austin, Texas. Starbase is located near Brownsville, Texas, and has been a construction site for several years that SpaceX has been using for its Starship rockets.

Musk hasn’t said anything more about it since mid-July, and no actions have been taken by SpaceX or X to do so as of yet. While his X comments can be controversial and spur further debate and attacks posted on social media and by news media outlets, it will likely have little to no impact on what happens in Long Beach. SpaceX’s impact on the space travel and aerospace sector – and NASA projects – continues to be substantial; and the City of Long Beach is very excited to have SpaceX increase its presence at the port.

On July 28, the Office of Mayor Rex Richardson posted on X, “Excited to share a Space Beach update! Long Beach will be the new home to @SpaceX’s Dragon recovery vessel as their West Coast Recovery Operations team based out of the @portoflongbeach…… will welcome back both @NASA and other private astronauts who are returning to Earth from orbit and beyond. We’ll continue sharing updates as #SpaceBeach continues to soar!”

SpaceX has been sharing Pier T with El Segundo-based ABL Space Systems, a company that develops low-cost rockets to launch satellites. ABL says that at its Port of Long Beach location, the company conducts vehicle processing, payload integration, and maritime operations to support its global network of launch facilities.

ABL operates a facility a little bit over 8 acres in size, and 1.31 acres of submerged land at the Navy Mole on the Port’s Pier T. The Navy Mole at Pier T in the Port of Long Beach is a former part of the Long Beach Naval Station.

Jon LeSage is a resident of Long Beach and a veteran business media reporter and editor. You can reach him at jtlesage1@yahoo.com.