SpaceX flies to Brownsville the week Starship V3 prepares for launch

SpaceX flew from Los Angeles to Brownsville on May 14, landing at South Padre Island International Airport just before 11 a.m. local time. The 20-minute flight, a brief loop after arriving from Hawthorne, brought employees to the company's Starbase facility in South Texas.

The same week, SpaceX announced it is targeting May 19 for the first launch of its Starship Version 3 megarocket, a larger and more powerful vehicle that stands about 408 feet tall, per a Space.com report on May 12. The company completed a launch rehearsal on May 11, loading more than 5,000 metric tons of propellant, and is now in the final countdown for Flight 12, which will also debut the new Raptor 3 engines and the redesigned Pad 2.

The N154TS 737-800, a high-capacity employee shuttle, has been running the Los Angeles-to-Brownsville route roughly three times a week throughout May, with flights on May 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, and 13. The pattern reflects the intense pace of work at Starbase as SpaceX pushes toward the first flight of the V3 configuration, a milestone that could help pave the way for NASA's Artemis lunar missions.