Elon Musk plans $100 million expansion to SpaceX Starbase office in Brownsville

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is expanding its SpaceX Starbase office in Texas. Here's what we know.

SpaceX expands it's Brownsville offices

Musk already claims Austin as headquarters for Tesla, and now he's expanding his SpaceX facility in Brownsville.

Brownsville is currently home to a landing pad, launch facility, launch control center and tracking station. A 40-minute drive along Highway 4 will take you to the unincorporated community of Boca Chica.

From the outside, Boca Chica appears to be a tiny village marked by a handful of houses along Boca Chica Beach. However, it also claims the Boca Chica launch site, officially called SpaceX South Texas launch site.

In addition to the Texas locations, SpaceX also has offices in California and Florida.

More on Tesla's Austin headquarters:Elon Musk, Tesla kick off Cybertruck launch, deliver first trucks at Giga Texas in Austin

The spacecraft manufacturer is preparing a $100 million five-story office. Construction is scheduled to begin Friday and will be completed by 2025, Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation records show.

The office will be added to the special use industrial factory Starbase, which takes up about 1 million square feet.

SpaceX incorporation switches from Delaware to Texas

SpaceX has re-incorporated from Delaware to Texas. Musk announced the transition on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The switch in incorporation doesn't actually involve anything moving. Rather, the term "incorporated," as defined by Carta, means a business has successfully registered with a state and, therefore, becomes a separate legal entity.

SpaceX's transition to a Texas incorporation comes weeks after a Delaware judge found Musk's $33 billion Tesla pay package to be unfair.

Also read: Elon Musk's SpaceX to launch business to Texas after Delaware revokes Tesla pay package

"[T]he defendants bore the burden of proving that the compensation plan was fair, and they failed to meet their burden," McCormick wrote in the decision, which was posted online by Bloomberg News.

What is the SpaceX Starship?

Musk has said this program hinges on his belief that humanity needs to become a multi-planetary, space-faring species sooner rather than later. He believes the Starship will be the vehicle to put humans on Mars.

This new space vehicle was designed to transport humans, cargo and payloads to Earth’s orbit, the moon and Mars.

It has two parts: Super Heavy, a massive booster outfitted with 33 Raptor engines that will lift Starship, a 164-foot-tall spacecraft that can transport humans and cargo beyond low-Earth orbit. It produces more thrust than the Saturn V rocket of the Apollo era and NASA's current Space Launch System.

What does the Starship look like?

The design is has been compared to something out of science fiction due to a reflective, stainless steel outer shell.

Artist renderings show a futuristic interior matching the exterior – sleek, clean and colorless. Each astronaut would be assigned private living quarters suitable for sleeping, studying or communicating with loved ones back on Earth.

Future plans call for numerous floors, including one containing a gym and bathroom facilities. Some designs can accommodate as many as 100 people, but the capacity will vary by rocket.

What went wrong with Starship? Why did it explode?

SpaceX has been doing test flights off the southernmost tip of Texas. These are early unmanned tests.

Starship's first test launch exploded shortly after liftoff last April from the company's Starbase operations area near Brownsville. A second test flight also exploded in midair in November, though that mission was considered more successful as it flew longer, providing more data to the SpaceX team.

When is the next SpaceX Starship test flight?

Click here to view SpaceX's upcoming launches.

— Florida Today reporter Michelle Spitzer contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Elon Musk plans $100 million expansion to SpaceX Starbase in Texas