Starbase, Texas
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Starbase, formerly Boca Chica Village or Kopernik Shores, is a city in Cameron County, Texas, United States, at the mouth of the
Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...
. It was formed in the late 1960s, and is still extant as of 2025, although the village proper has changed greatly since 2018 as
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...
came to purchase much of the land of the village. It lies east of the City of Brownsville on the Boca Chica peninsula, and forms part of the Brownsville–Harlingen–Raymondville and the Matamoros–Brownsville metropolitan areas. It is situated on Texas State Highway 4, immediately south of the South Bay lagoon, and is located about north of the mouth of the
Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...
. Although the name Kopernik Shores is no longer in popular use, it’s still used occasionally in official contexts per the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. The population was 500 as of 2025. Numerous construction projects are underway including a community center, school, clinic, and additional housing. In 2014, the village was chosen as the location for the construction of a control facility for the SpaceX South Texas launch site, while the launch site itself was slated to be built just farther east, adjacent to Boca Chica State Park on the Texas Gulf Coast. Flight testing—and even more frequent ground testing—of prototype rocket vehicles and
rocket engine A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed Jet (fluid), jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stor ...
s began in 2019. In March 2021, SpaceX CEO
Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...
announced plans to incorporate a new city to be called Starbase, Texas in the area. Starbase is planned to include the existing Boca Chica Village, the SpaceX test site and launch site, and more of the surrounding Boca Chica area. SpaceX submitted a petition to Cameron County to formally incorporate the city of Starbase, which voters approved on May 3, 2025, through a municipal ballot measure. Formal incorporation occurred on May 20, 2025, with Bobby Peden, a SpaceX vice-president, serving as mayor. Peden ran unopposed, as did two other residents with SpaceX ties who fill the two commissioner seats.


Proposed renaming

In May 2024, Cameron County submitted a formal proposal to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, to rename the Village from Kopernik Shores (still its official name for federal purposes, despite having fallen out of common use) to Starbase, which was publicly posted on their website in July 2024. At the May 2024 meeting of the Board's Domestic Names Committee, doubts were expressed over whether the proposed name violates the Board's policy against recognizing names intended to promote a commercial enterprise. As of October 2024, the Board was awaiting feedback on the proposal from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Texas Geographic Names Committee. Voters approved the creation of the city named Starbase on May 3, 2025.


History


Early history

In 1967, the settlement was founded as Kennedy Shores by John Caputa, a Chicagoan property developer, and was initially aimed at
working-class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
Polish migrants. After building a community of about 30
ranch-style house Ranch (also known as American ranch, California ranch, rambler, or rancher) is a domestic architectural style that originated in the United States. The ranch-style house is noted for its long, close-to-the-ground profile, and wide open layout. ...
s, the settlement was devastated by Hurricane Beulah later in 1967, which destroyed the restaurant and
public utility A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and ...
systems. Electricity was restored, but many of the homes did not have potable water even decades later. In 1975, local resident Stanley Piotrowicz was voted in as town "
mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...
"; he renamed the village Kopernik Shores after
Nicolaus Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a mathematical model, model of Celestial spheres#Renaissance, the universe that placed heliocentrism, the Sun rather than Earth at its cen ...
, and attempted to have the village recognized as an
incorporated community A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...
, but this was denied by the state government. In 1990 and 2000, the population was 26 people. As of 2008, only six people were permanent residents of the village, and that number was down to four people in two homes by 2017, with an average of approximately 12 seasonal residents.


SpaceX launch site

In 2012, private space exploration company
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...
named the Boca Chica area as a possible location for the construction of their future private commercial launch site. SpaceX started buying land in Boca Chica in 2012. In August 2014, SpaceX announced that they had selected the Boca Chica area as the location for their South Texas Launch Site, and that their "control center" would be within the village itself, while the launch complex would be located to the east. Limited construction began that year, and more extensive construction activities began around 2018. Flight testing of the
SpaceX Starship Starship is a two-stage fully reusable launch vehicle, reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. On 20 April 2023, with the Starship flight test 1, first Integrated Flight Test, Starship b ...
with a newly designed Raptor rocket engine began in 2019 and has continued into 2021. With the village only a few miles from the test site Cameron County officials—following launch test permitting requirements set by the US
regulatory authority A regulatory agency (regulatory body, regulator) or independent agency (independent regulatory agency) is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous jurisdiction over some area of human activity in a licensing and regu ...
, the FAA—began in August 2019 to request residents to stand outside their homes during any tests that involve loading of
propellant A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or another motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicle ...
fuel, due to perceived danger from shock-wave induced broken windows in the event of a test anomaly and explosion. The site has been criticized as a " sacrifice zone". It was seen as empty space by both SpaceX and the state; in 2018, for example,
Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...
said: "We’ve got a load of land with nobody around, so if it blows up, it's cool." At the time of its construction, many of the villagers’ homes were bought out with the threat of
eminent domain Eminent domain, also known as land acquisition, compulsory purchase, resumption, resumption/compulsory acquisition, or expropriation, is the compulsory acquisition of private property for public use. It does not include the power to take and t ...
. The launch site is an area where ‘negative externalities’ are located making it a sacrifice zone. In September 2019, SpaceX extended an offer to buy each of the houses in Boca Chica Village for three times the
fair market value The fair market value of property is the price at which it would change hands between a willing and informed buyer and seller. The term is used throughout the Internal Revenue Code, as well as in bankruptcy laws, in many state laws, and by several ...
along with an offer of VIP invitations to future launch events. The amount of the offer was said to be "non-negotiable". Homeowners were initially given two weeks for that particular offer to remain valid. Some Boca Chica property owners were happy with the offer and made plans to accept, but other owners were not, noting that they had made substantial improvements to their properties and that the base valuation used by the September process used county tax assessment valuations and did not look at the specifics of each house so could not be a full appraised valuation. The ''
Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. ...
'' reported that the county seems to be taking a broader view of what is best for the "local economy, educational system, and quality of living in a region that is one of the poorest in the state." Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. specifically mentioned consideration of the "450,000, 500,000 people that make up Cameron County, and the other million that make up the Valley, and also all the residents of Texas ... houghit is terrible, personally, for those 10 or 20 remaining residential owners" in Boca Chica Village. ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' reported in late September that SpaceX extended the original two-week offer period by three weeks, in order to allow property owners to work with the county appraiser in order to potentially get their assessed valuations adjusted upward based on improvements beyond what the previous appraisal understood. Many residents who accepted purchase offers had moved away by March 2020. A small number of house owners in Boca Chica Village did not accept the 2019 offer from SpaceX and remained in the village in October 2020, one year after the initial purchase offers from SpaceX were made to residents.
"David Finlay, SpaceX’s Senior Director of Finance, told Boca Chica Village residents that this would be SpaceX’s final and best offer, and threatened the company would need to pursue alternate means to obtain the homes if the people of Boca Chica Village turned down the money. ... 'the scale and frequency of spaceflight activities at the site continue to accelerate, your property will frequently fall within established hazard zones in which no civilians will be permitted to remain, in order to comply with all federal and other public safety regulations. This email therefore represents SpaceX’s best and final purchase offer."


Incorporation

In March 2021, Elon Musk stated that he was seeking to incorporate Boca Chica Village into Starbase, Texas. Eddie Treviño Jr, the County Judge of Cameron County, indicated then that the county's commissioners court "were informed of SpaceX's endeavor", and said that SpaceX "must abide by all state incorporation statutes". Starbase includes the land in Boca Chica Village proper—where both the legacy house community and the SpaceX build site are located—as well as the land where the SpaceX test site and launch site is located, and more since Starbase is to be a municipality "much larger than Boca Chica". On May 20, 2025, Starbase was formally incorporated as a Type C general city with a commission form of government, comprising a mayor and two commissioners.


See also

* Boca Chica (Texas) * Battle of Palmito Ranch *
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* Leesville, Texas *
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* Snailbrook, Texas


References


External links

* {{authority control 2025 establishments in Texas Cities in Cameron County, Texas Cities in Texas Populated coastal places in Texas Company towns in Texas Populated places established in 2025 SpaceX