Elon Musk‘s SpaceX has invested over $3 billion in infrastructure at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, and it now has an annual gross economic market value of over $6.5 billion, as per data released by Cameron County officials.
What Happened: Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño, Jr. shared the economic impact of the facility on Tuesday.
"While SpaceX is located in the unincorporated territory of Cameron County, their presence has positively affected all the cities within Cameron County through increased tourism and new job opportunities,” Trevino said in a statement.
“We look forward to additional growth and investment in the future as SpaceX carries on their mission to explore space, return us to the moon, and colonize Mars.”
According to the judge’s statement, SpaceX has invested over $3 billion in infrastructure at Starbase. The facility has generated over $800 million of state and local government capital income and indirect business taxes, with an annual gross economic market value of over $6.5 billion.
Starbase has over 350 acres of land and over 222,000 square feet of manufacturing. The company is investing an additional $400 million to construct a million square feet of manufacturing space and 329,000 square feet of office space at Starbase, the judge added.
The Boca Chica facility, dedicated to SpaceX’s ambitious Starship launch vehicle, has over 3,400 SpaceX employees and contractors, creating over 21,000 indirect jobs in the community.
Furthermore, the economic impact of Starbase tourism is estimated to be over $99 million in 2025, as per the county report.
Why It Matters: All development and manufacturing of the Starship currently takes place only at Starbase in Texas. However, last month, Musk took to social media and said the company aims to build two Starship towers at Cape Canaveral in Florida, hinting at plans to launch Starships from the state.
While one of the two towers is expected to be at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A, the location for the second is still under consideration, he said.
As of today, however, all the last four flight tests of the Starship were launched from Starbase.
While the spacecraft failed to reach space in the first flight, it reached space and exploded in the second test flight. During the third flight test, the spacecraft broke apart when re-entering Earth's atmosphere from space.
However, the fourth flight test earlier this month was a success, with the company checking all its test flight goals including reentry through Earth's atmosphere and a soft splashdown of the spacecraft in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX is expected to have at least six flights of the Starship this year, as per Musk's latest estimate from March.
NASA is currently relying on the success of Starship to land humans back on the moon. The last crewed lunar mission occurred in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
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