Private discussions between SpaceX and
state officials about a private launch site began at least as early as 2011. SpaceX CEO
Elon Musk mentioned interest in a private launch site for their commercial launches in a September 2011 speech. In 2012, Fredrick (Rick) Jenet, director of the
Center for Advanced Radio Astronomy (CARA) and an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the
University of Texas at Brownsville, proposed to install the
STARGATE in Boca Chica (initial funding included in seed money provided by the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation in October 2012) as part of a package to increase the likelihood of attracting SpaceX to build a
launch site in the area. The goal was also to have students and the faculty to be hands-on and assist with launches and space exploration, which was viewed as a rare opportunity. Separate from the putative city, by early 2022, the Starbase moniker for the SpaceX facilities in South Texas had become common. The SpaceX site has also been called the "Gateway to Mars", including in a now removed sign outside the launch site. Starbase is also used sometimes to describe the region of the Boca Chica subdelta peninsula surrounding the SpaceX facilities; see . In January 2024, Cameron County and Brownsville officials both passed resolutions requesting the federal government to recognize "Starbase" as an official place name for the area.
Launch site selection and environmental assessment As early as April 2007, at least five potential locations were publicly known, including "sites in
Alaska,
California,
Florida,
Texas and
Virginia." In September 2012, it became clear that
Georgia and
Puerto Rico were also interested in pursuing the new SpaceX commercial spaceport facility. The
Camden County, Georgia, Joint Development Authority voted unanimously in November 2012 to "explore developing an aerospaceport facility" at
an Atlantic coastal site to support both horizontal and vertical launch operations. The main Puerto Rico site under consideration was the former
Roosevelt Roads Naval Station. By early 2013, Texas remained the leading candidate for the location of the new SpaceX commercial launch facility, although Florida, Georgia, and other locations remained in the running. Legislation was introduced by the
Texas Legislature to enable temporary closure of state beaches during launches, limit liability for noise and other commercial spaceflight risks, as well as considering a package of incentives to encourage SpaceX to locate at Brownsville, Texas. 2013 economic estimates showed SpaceX investing approximately in the development and construction of the facility. and public hearings on the new launch site, which would be located in
Cameron County, Texas. The summary then indicated that the Texas site would support up to 12 commercial launches per year, including two
Falcon Heavy launches. and the FAA released a draft EIS for the location in South Texas in April 2013. Public hearings on the draft EIS occurred in Brownsville, followed by a public comment period ending in June 2013. The company formally announced selection of the Texas location in August 2014. In 2019, the FAA completed a reevaluation of the SpaceX facilities in South Texas, and in particular the revised plans away from a commercial spaceport to more of a spaceship yard for building and testing rockets at the facility, as well as flying different rockets—
SpaceX Starship and prototype test vehicles—from the site than the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy envisioned in the original 2014 environmental assessment. In May and August 2019, the FAA issued a written report with a decision that a new supplemental EIS would not be required. In May 2021, the FAA issued a written
FAQ regarding the FAA's Environmental Review of SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site. Throughout 2022, Starship's first integrated flight test was delayed extensively, due to delays in the FAA issuing a license, to allow findings on environmental impact. On June 13, 2022, the FAA announced that Starbase was not creating a significant impact on the environment, yet listed more than 75 actions to be taken before review for an orbital launch license. Some of these actions included a $5,000 contribution to wildlife nonprofits in the area, making sure roadways stay open on certain days of the year, and actions to protect local sea turtle populations.
Land acquisition Prior to a final decision on the location of the spaceport, SpaceX began purchasing a number of real estate properties in Cameron County, Texas, beginning in June 2012. through a company named
Dogleg Park LLC, a reference to the "dogleg"
type of trajectory that rockets launched from Boca Chica will be required to follow. Prior to May 2013, five lots in the Spanish Dagger Subdivision in Boca Chica Village, adjacent to Highway 4 which leads to the proposed launch site, had been purchased. In May 2013, SpaceX purchased an additional three parcels, adding another , In November 2013, SpaceX substantially "increased its land holdings in the Boca Chica Beach area from 12 lots to 72 undeveloped lots" purchased, which encompass a total of approximately , in addition to the leased from private property owners. An additional few acres were purchased late in 2013, raising the SpaceX total "from 72 undeveloped lots to 80 lots totaling about 26 acres." In late 2013, SpaceX completed a
replat of 13 lots totaling into a subdivision that they have named "
Mars Crossing." SpaceX's investments in Cameron County continued in March 2014, with the purchase of more tracts of land, bringing the total number of lots it owned to 90. Public records showed that the total land area that SpaceX then owned through Dogleg Park LLC was roughly . This is in addition to that SpaceX then had under lease. By September 2014, Dogleg Park completed a replat of lots totaling into a second subdivision, this one named "Launch Site Texas", made up of several parcels of property previously purchased. This is the site of the launch site itself while the launch control facility is planned two miles west in the Mars Crossing subdivision. Dogleg Park had also continued purchasing land in Boca Chica, and by September 2014 owned a total of "87 lots equaling more than 100 acres". SpaceX has also bought and is modifying several residential properties in Boca Chica Village, but apparently planning to leave them in residential use, about west of the launch site. In September 2019, SpaceX extended an offer to buy each of the houses in Boca Chica Village for three times the
fair market value along with an offer of
VIP invitations to future launch events. The 3x offer was said to be "non-negotiable." Homeowners were given two weeks for this particular offer to remain valid. In January 2024, the
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced a proposal to transfer 43 acres of Boca Chica State Park lands to SpaceX, in exchange for 477 new acres to be added to the
Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge.
Construction Major site construction at SpaceX's launch site in Boca Chica began in 2016, with site soil preparation for the launch pad in a process said to take two years, with significant additional soil work and significant construction beginning in late 2018. By September 2019, the site had been "transformed into an operational launch site – outfitted with the ground support equipment needed to support test flights of the methane-fueled Starship vehicles." Lighter construction of fencing and temporary buildings in the control center area had begun in 2014. The Texas launch location was projected in the 2013
draft EIS to include a vertical launch area and a area for a
launch control center and a launch pad directly adjacent to the eastern terminus of Texas State Highway 4. but indicated then that the principal work to build the facility was not expected to ramp up until late 2015 The design phase for the facility was completed by March 2015. Construction was delayed by the destruction of one of SpaceX two Florida launch facilities in a September 2016
rocket explosion, which delayed the launch site design/build team for over a year. In order to stabilize the waterlogged ground at the coastal site, SpaceX engineers determined that a process known as
soil surcharging would be required. For this to happen, some of new soil was trucked to the facility between October 2015 and January 2016. In February 2016, SpaceX President and
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Gwynne Shotwell stated that construction had been delayed by poor soil stability at the site, and that "two years of dirt work" would be required before SpaceX could build the launch facility, with construction costs expected to be higher than previously estimated. The first phase of the soil stabilization process was completed by May 2016. antennas installed at the control center Two
S-band tracking station antennas were installed at the site in 2016–2017. and made operational as tracking resources for crewed
Dragon missions in 2018. A SpaceX-owned
photovoltaic power station was installed on site to provide off-grid electrical power near the control center, The solar farm was installed by
SolarCity in January 2018. Progress on building the pad had slowed considerably through 2017, much slower than either SpaceX or Texas state officials had expected when it was announced in 2014. Support for SpaceX, however, remained fairly strong amongst Texas public officials. In January 2018,
COO Shotwell said the pad might be used for "early vehicle testing" by late 2018 or early 2019 but that additional work would be required after that to make it into a full launch site. SpaceX achieved this new target, with prototype rocket and rocket engine ground testing at Boca Chica starting in March 2019, and
suborbital flight tests starting in July 2019. In late 2018 the rate of construction increased, and the site saw the development of a large propellant tank farm including a 95,000 gallon horizontal liquid oxygen tank and 80,000 gallon liquid methane tank, a
gas flare, more offices, and a small flat square launch pad. The
Starhopper prototype was relocated to the pad in March 2019, and first flew in late July 2019. By September 2019, the facility had been transformed into a new phase of an industrial rocket build facility, with workers working multiple shifts and more than five days a week, able to support large rocket ground and flight testing. In March 2021, SpaceX received a "Determination of no hazard to air navigation" from the FAA for the launch tower that SpaceX was building to support
orbital launches. The period of construction shown on the FAA documents was April–July 2021 but the expiration date on the regulatory approval was September 18, 2021. The launch tower was fully stacked by late July 2021, when a crane lifted the ninth and final large steel section to the top of the tower at the orbital launch site (OLS). The tower is designed to have a set of large arms attached which is used to stack both Super Heavy and the Starship second stage on the adjacent launch mount and catch the rocket on return to the launch site. There is no separate large crane attached to the top of the tower. The
launch mount ("Stage Zero") began construction in July 2020, when the
rebar of the
deep foundation began to rise above the ground. Soon six large steel circular launch supports were erected which would eventually support the massive weight of the launch table some ten months later. The mount was built to full height on July 31, 2021, with the rollout and craning into place of the launch table, which had been custom built at the manufacturing site over the preceding months. On April 20, 2023, Starbase hosted the
first launch of the fully stacked Ship 24/Booster 7. The launch ended in an uncontrolled spin due to ignited propellant leaks in the engine control systems, and the rocket's
flight termination system (AFTS) failed to immediately destroy the vehicle, with the booster firing for an additional 40 seconds before breaking apart, demising at 29km, without reaching the planned suborbital trajectory. Prior to the launch, Musk had said that if the rocket were to get "far enough away from the launchpad before something goes wrong, then I think I would consider that to be a success."
Operation '' Starbase is SpaceX's fourth active launch facility, and its first private facility. , SpaceX leased three U.S. government-owned launch sites:
Vandenberg SLC 4 in
California, and
Cape Canaveral SLC-40 and
Kennedy Space Center LC39A both in Florida. The launch site is in Cameron County, Texas, The launch site is planned to be optimized for commercial activity, as well as used to fly spacecraft on interplanetary trajectories. Launches on orbital trajectories from Brownsville will have a constrained flight path, due to the
Caribbean Islands as well as the large number of
oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX has stated that they have a good flight path available for the launching of
satellites on trajectories toward the commercially valuable
geosynchronous orbit. Although SpaceX initial plans for the Boca Chica launch site were to loft robotic spacecraft to
geosynchronous orbits, Elon Musk indicated in September 2014 that "the first person to go to another planet could launch from [the Boca Chica launch site]", but did not indicate which launch vehicle might be used for those launches. In May 2018, Musk clarified that the South Texas launch site would be used exclusively for Starship. By March 2019, two
test articles of Starship were being built, and three by May. The low-altitude, low-velocity Starship test flight rocket was used for initial integrated testing of the
Raptor rocket engine with a flight-capable propellant structure, and was slated to also test the newly designed
autogenous pressurization system that is replacing traditional
helium tank pressurization as well as initial launch and landing algorithms for the much larger rocket. SpaceX developed their reusable booster technology for the 3-meter-diameter
Falcon 9 from 2012 to 2018. The
Starhopper prototype was also the platform for the first flight tests of the
full-flow staged combustion methalox Raptor engine, where the hopper vehicle was flight tested with a single engine in July/August 2019, but could be fitted with up to three engines to facilitate engine-out tolerance testing. By March 2020, SpaceX had doubled the number of employees onsite for Starship manufacturing, test and operations since January, with over 500 employees working at the site. The employees work in four 12-hour shifts distributed throughout the day, with 4 days on, then 3 off for a given week, followed by 3 days on and 4 off for the next—to enable continuous Starship manufacturing with workers and equipment specialized to each task of serial Starship production. A 1 MW solar farm and a 3.8 MWh battery supplies some of the electricity. In September 2022, during a first test firing of all six engines of the Starship prototype, scattered hot debris ignited a SpaceX dumpster, and caused a
bushfire in the nearby
Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area, an environmentally sensitive area, ultimately burning 68 acres before the fire could be doused. In May 2023, a few weeks after retiring from
NASA, ex-head of human spaceflight
Kathy Lueders joined SpaceX to oversee operations at Starbase to "give government customers comfort and confidence that Starship is going to be a *real thing* around which they can base future plans and operations." On June 18, 2025, Ship 36 experienced an energetic failure (explosion) at the Massey's test site at 11:02:52 PM CDT during propellant loading for a static fire. No injuries were reported. The explosion caused fires and damage to the test site and may cause delays to the Starship program, resulting in SpaceX using the Orbital Launch Mount A for static fires of both Ship 37 and Ship 38.
Launches On April 20, 2023,
Starship flight test 1 was carried out from Starbase, resulting in immense damage to the launch mount. On November 11, 2023, SpaceX announced that they were targeting November 17, 2023 for their next Starship launch date. They conducted the
second integrated flight test on the 18th, but it resulted in the implosion of the Super Heavy booster due to oxygen line clogs leading to engine failures, while excessive oxygen venting forced the Starship upper stage to trigger its self-destruct. The launch infrastructure was deemed to be in good shape afterward. On March 14, 2024, the
third flight test launched, ending in the Super Heavy booster crashing into the Gulf of Mexico, and the Starship upper stage disintegrating upon atmospheric re-entry. The launch infrastructure again performed well, and SpaceX had noted their propellant filling processes were faster by about 20 minutes. On June 6, 2024, the
fourth flight test launched, marking the first flight in which both stages reached their end objectives (soft splashdown for booster and ship respectively). On October 13, 2024,
the fifth flight test of Starship featured the first catch of a vehicle. This was followed by an aborted catch during
flight 6 due to damage to the launch tower, and a successful catch during both
flight 7 and
flight 8. == Facilities ==