{"id":3205,"date":"2022-10-10T21:40:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T21:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/?p=3205"},"modified":"2025-07-25T10:48:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T10:48:01","slug":"south-texas-could-see-spacexs-starship-launch-next-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/south-texas-could-see-spacexs-starship-launch-next-week\/","title":{"rendered":"South Texas could see SpaceX\u2019s Starship launch next week"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brandon Lingle, San Antonio Express News \u2022 November 5, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s 17-story-tall Starship could blast off from its South Texas launch pad sometime next week, according to documents filed with the Cameron County Court.<\/p>\n

The primary launch window is between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Monday for the 50,000-ft. flight.<\/p>\n

To date, the spacecraft\u2019s highest test flight has reached about 500 feet.<\/p>\n

Missiles and rockets are often visible hundreds of miles away from their launch sites depending on factors such as the size and trajectory of the craft, sky conditions and curvature of the Earth, according to Sam Ximenes, CEO of XArc, a San Antonio-based space architecture company.<\/p>\n

San Antonio is about 300 miles from Boca Chica, near Brownsville, so there\u2019s a possibility that residents could see Starship in flight. Of course, the chances are better the further south people are.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire Rio Grande Valley, specifically Brownsville, Texas, alongside the entire community of space exploration enthusiasts are anxiously waiting for the upcoming SpaceX SN8 15-kilometer hop,\u201d says Nathan Burkhart, BCIC Director of Marketing & Small Business Development.<\/p>\n

The Starship is the craft that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hopes will someday shepherd people to the moon, Mars and beyond.<\/p>\n

Alternate dates for the test are during the same 12-hour time frame Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n

SpaceX has not formally announced the launch, but the Starship \u2014 formally known as the Serial Number 8 prototype, or SN8 \u2014 has met the necessary development and testing milestones over the past several weeks.<\/p>\n

\n

The entire Rio Grande Valley, specifically Brownsville, Texas, alongside the entire community of space exploration enthusiasts are anxiously waiting for the upcoming SpaceX SN8 15-kilometer hop<\/h3>\n

Nathan Burkhart<\/strong>
\nBCIC Director of Marketing & Small Business Development.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

SN8 must endure a static test fire before the 60,000 flight, according to the filing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough it is possible that anything can occur during this test, the activity itself will still be considered a success in terms of elevating the support of space activities in Brownsville, Texas, and increase the interest of leaders in the space exploration industry to consider our area for future growth,\u201d Burkhart said.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Boca Chica launch site, near South Padre Island and Port Isabel as well as Brownsville, currently employs around 3,000 people, according to Burkhart.<\/p>\n

Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevi\u00f1o Jr. authorized SpaceX to close Boca Chica Beach and portions of State Highway 4 ahead of the planned launch.<\/p>\n

Musk said in a tweet Monday that the company will stream video of the launch, \u201calthough it might be quite a short livestream! Lot can go wrong, but we\u2019ll provide video, warts & all. You will see every frame that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The military, SpaceX and a San Antonio company \u2014 XArc \u2014 are collaborating on a study to determine whether the Starship is capable of moving cargo anywhere in the world in an hour or less.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Starship\u2019s progress, SpaceX has had a breakout year so far. It\u2019s sent the first NASA astronauts to space from American soil since 2011 and celebrated the 100th successful Falcon 9 rocket flight. It\u2019s also landed an Air Force contract, worth billions, to launch 40 percent of the nation\u2019s classified payloads from 2022 to 2024.<\/p>\n

The company is also building a constellation of Starlink satellites that\u2019ll provide global broadband internet.<\/p>\n

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brandon Lingle, San Antonio Express News \u2022 November 5, 2020 SpaceX\u2019s 17-story-tall Starship could blast off from its South Texas launch pad sometime next week, according to documents filed with the Cameron County Court. The primary launch window is between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Monday for the 50,000-ft. flight. To date, the spacecraft\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_angie_page":false,"content-type":"","page_builder":"","feature_success_story":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aerospace","category-economic-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}