SpaceX launching a new mission- making a starbase site a new Texas city

Billionaire Elon Musk's space giant SpaceX would launch a new mission – making its Starbase site a new Texas city, American media reported on Friday (Dec 13).

On Thursday, SpaceX sent a letter to local officials requesting an election to turn what it calls Starbase — the South Texas site where SpaceX builds and launches its massive Starship rockets — into an incorporated city.

Residents of the area known as Starbase submitted the petition, SpaceX said. The area is on the southern tip of Texas at Boca Chica Beach, near the Mexican border.

'Need the ability to grow Starbase as a community'

In a letter addressed to Cameron County, Starbase's General Manager Kathryn Lueders said, "To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community. 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."

This is not the first time turning Starbase into its city has been floated.

Elon Musk had proposed the idea in 2021 when he wrote a social media post which said, "Creating the city of Starbase, Texas."

'Petition to be reviewed'

Speaking to the news agency Associated Press, Cameron County officialEddie Treviño Jr said on Thursday that despite talks of incorporating a Starbase in 2021, this was the first time a petition had been officially filed.

“Our legal and elections administration will review the petition, see whether or not it complied with all of the statutory requirements and then we’ll go from there,”Treviño Jr added.

(With inputs from agencies)