SpaceX wants Starbase to become an official city in Texas

SpaceX is hoping to officially make its Starbase facility a new city in South Texas.

The private spaceflight company submitted a petition to local authorities on Dec. 12, requesting an election on incorporating the Starbase launch site as its own city. The Starbase facility located near Boca Chica, Texas, has seen some of SpaceX's most ambitious launches, including the recent Starship rocket catch, and will become the company's new headquarters in a move from California to Texas.

"To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community," SpaceX said in the petition, which was shared in a post on X (formally Twitter). "That is why we are requesting that Cameron County call an election to enable the incorporation of Starbase as the newest city in the Rio Grande Valley."

The petition was addressed to Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., the county's top elected official. The next step will be for officials to review the petition to determine if it complies with statutory requirements. Then, an election would be held to incorporate Starbase.

Starbase serves as SpaceX's primary launch site for Starship test flights, which demonstrate its reusable rocket technology. The most recent launch on Nov. 19 represented the sixth test flight of the Starship launch vehicle, which proved successful with the first in-space burn of a single Raptor engine for deorbiting processes. SpaceX is preparing for a seventh test flight in January 2025, which will attempt another booster recovery at the launch site.

Thousands of SpaceX employees work at Starbase, with several hundred living on-site. The company credits the generation of "hundreds of millions in income and taxes for local businesses and government" to the launch facility. Given the remote location of the launch site, SpaceX already helps manage the area's roads and utilities, and assists with schooling and medical care for residents through agreements with the county.

With Starship expected to "fundamentally alter humanity's access to space," SpaceX aims to make the area of the Starbase launch site the "Gateway to Mars," the company wrote in the petition.

This is not the first time turning Starbase into its own city has come up. SpaceX founder Elon Musk previously proposed the idea on social media in 2021; however, it was not until Dec. 12 that a petition was officially filed with the support of Starbase residents.

"Incorporating Starbase will streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world class place to live — for hundreds already calling it home, as well as for prospective workers eager to help build humanity's future in space," SpaceX officials said in the petition.