by SpaceX wants to do a land swap in Texas to “expand its operational footprint around its launch facilities” for its massive new Starship rocket, according to the state.
SpaceX plans to give the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department 477 acres (193 hectares) near the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge just north of Boca Chica in coastal South Texas, according to state documentation. The town of Boca Chica is close to where the company conducts Starship launches and testing. In exchange, the division would give SpaceX 43 acres (17.4 hectares) from Boca Chica State Park, closer to the Starship area.
A public meeting is planned for Thursday (January 25) to discuss the matter. You can submit your comments online through local business hours in Texas on Wednesday (January 24).
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The ground discussion again focuses on SpaceX’s ongoing activities in the environmentally sensitive area surrounding its facilities in South Texas, as the company works on lucrative Starship-related contracts. SpaceX’s Starship system has been tasked by NASA with bringing astronauts to the surface of the moon on the Artemis 3 mission in 2026, in the first of a series of lunar landing opportunities for SpaceX.
But to get approval for lunar trips, SpaceX must confirm Starship with multiple launches; earlier this month, NASA pushed back its Artemis landing schedule by at least a year to accommodate a host of issues. A crewed mission to the moon called Artemis 2 has run into technical issues, and SpaceX’s Starship and spacesuits built by Axiom Space likely won’t be ready in time for the previous Artemis 3 landing timeline of 2025, NASA officials said.
Starship, the most powerful rocket in the world, has not yet reached space. But two previous launch attempts – and additional years of testing – have generated reports of controversy among local residents.
The agenda for Thursday’s public meeting notes that part of the state’s rationale for acquiring the acreage near Laguna Atascosa, however, is that the swap would allow Texans to enjoy recreational activities such as “hiking, camping, water recreation, and watching wildlife. The newly protected land would also meet environmental needs by “greater conservation of sensitive habitats for wintering and migratory birds.”
Related: Environmental groups sue the FAA over SpaceX’s Starship rocket
SpaceX has owned land in the state of Texas since 2003, initially targeting a test site west of Waco, according to the San Antonio Express-News in a July 2013 report. Company founder and CEO Elon Musk spoke to the Texas legislature at the time about plans to transform the Boca Chica area, called a “salt flat strip” by the newspaper, into an area now used for Starship launches and other tests.
Purchases of the Boca Chica area have been underway since at least 2014, according to a report in the Austin American-Statesman from that July. The purchases were made through SpaceX subsidiary Dogleg Park LLC, the Statesman report said, citing public records in turn cited by the Brownsville Herald.
Some of those purchases were made directly with local homeowners, with one NBC report from 2019 suggesting that residents received offers from SpaceX up to triple the value of their property (according to an appraisal commissioned by the company).
SpaceX’s activities on unowned lands have also stirred controversy. For example, one tract of land he leased near Brownsville became embroiled in a complex legal dispute over oil and gas rights and the proper use of the land, according to a 2021 MySanAntonio.com report.
Meanwhile, SpaceX’s launches near Boca Chica beach (and the resulting shutdown of launch activities) have drawn repeated concerns from environmental groups, as well as Native American tribes from the region who say they have used the land for generations.
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The first space launch attempt of SpaceX’s Starship, on April 20, 2023, generated flying concrete debris as the first stage of the rocket, powered by 33 Raptor engines, burst out a large crater below the pad. After the second Starship launch, on November 18 of the year, Musk said on X (formerly Twitter, which he also owns) that there was no pad damage after SpaceX installed a steel plate pouring water below the pad.
That said, the first Starship space effort is still in legal dispute. A lawsuit filed against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2023, by a coalition of environmental groups and Native American tribes, claimed that the agency did not fully consider the environmental damage that SpaceX’s first space launch attempt would cause. That case is ongoing. New legal claims were filed by the same coalition in December 2023 after the second launch, according to a report from the Express-News.
The FAA approves each Starship launch individually after consulting with other government departments and agencies, including environmental authorities. According to its mandate, the agency has also said it will oversee a “disaster investigation” led by SpaceX to “ensure that SpaceX complies with its FAA-approved accident investigation plan and other regulatory requirements,” the agency said. Write three X’s on November 18, after a second launch attempt. At the time, there were no reports of injuries or damage to public property due to the flight, the FAA added another job.
