Houston, Sep 23 (IANS): The groundbreaking ceremony for SpaceX's commercial spaceport, which is expected to be a key player in Mars exploration, has been held in the US state of Texas.

At the ceremony Monday, Elon Musk, the CEO and chief designer of SpaceX, said the company expected to begin the construction of the spaceport by mid-2015 and launch at least one commercial flight per month by late 2016, Xinhua reported.

Being optimistic about the spaceport, he said that mankind's survival may depend on the colonisation of other planets.

As a space transport services company, SpaceX was founded with the aim of reducing space transportation costs and enabling the colonisation of Mars.

Texas Governor Rick Perry also attended the groundbreaking ceremony. He said that he would allocate $4.4 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund for the creation of a research and technology commercialisation partnership called Stargate.

The Stargate facility, a radio frequency technology park next to the SpaceX launch site command centre, would be used by University of Texas Rio Grande Valley for training, scientific research and technology development, he added.