Analysts at investment bank Morgan Stanley have released a report on the strategic significance of SpaceX's planned construction of a new Starbase facility in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. According to leading industry expert Adam Jonas, the market has yet to fully price in the scale of this project when valuing SPCX shares. The analyst emphasized that investors are underestimating the ambition of the space company's plans for the Starship rocket. The new facility will include up to ten launch pads across five launch complexes, with construction slated to begin in 2027 and first flights expected in 2029. The site, located on land previously owned by ExxonMobil, is expected to create around three thousand jobs. A key factor in the location choice is Louisiana's status as the third-largest natural gas producer in the country, as each heavy-lift rocket launch requires more than one thousand tons of liquid methane.
Morgan Stanley's financial models place the fair value of SPCX shares at $137, based on multiples of 10x revenue and 25x EBIT for fiscal year 2028. These calculations account for projected revenue growth of 70 percent and an increase in operating profit of 113 percent. The analysts note that the Louisiana facility is not strictly necessary to achieve even the bank's base optimistic scenario. Reaching the projected $3.5 trillion in revenue by 2040 would require only eight launch pads operating at a rate of two launches per day. The currently identified capacity across Texas, Florida, and Louisiana — totaling 15 pads — already more than covers baseline needs.
The most significant aspect of the initiative, in the experts' view, is the opportunity it opens for the development of orbital computing. Morgan Stanley forecasts that starting in 2032, this segment will account for more than 80 percent of SpaceX's launch services revenue, far exceeding traditional cargo delivery and satellite deployment missions. Analysts calculated that each additional gigawatt of computing capacity — valued at $50 per watt with a 70 percent incremental margin and a 10x EBITDA multiple — could add $27 to the SPCX share price. The bank's own forecast for computing capacity at the end of fiscal year 2027 stands at 4.9 gigawatts, well below SpaceX's internal target of 10 gigawatts, pointing to significant untapped growth potential.
At the current price of $137, the implied multiple for the enterprise AI segment sits at extremely low levels, and the option on orbital computing is effectively priced at zero by the market. Adam Jonas highlighted a unique opportunity to reprice the business at IPO-level valuations amid improving fundamental momentum across the spaceflight, connectivity, and computing segments. The $100 billion figure cited for the Louisiana project represents aggregate costs over a decade and covers all modeled capital expenditures in the space segment from 2026 to 2035. However, once computing infrastructure spending is included, this facility will account for just two percent of total investment — funding for which will require raising approximately $80 billion in debt capital annually.
The analyst does not rule out execution risks, stressing that large-scale capital expenditures are easy to announce on paper, but demonstrating material business growth is required to justify them to debt markets. An additional argument for geographic diversification is the regulatory environment: growing resistance to data center expansion in various regions, including Texas, creates a structural need to distribute capacity across different jurisdictions. In the near term, the key tests of the bank's thesis will be the trajectory of computing capacity growth in fiscal year 2027 and the actual start of construction. Any delays or signs of stress in debt financing markets will serve as early indicators of how closely the stated ambitions align with the company's real capabilities.