SpaceX's N154TS shuttles employees from Desert Center to Starbase

SpaceX flew its Boeing 737-800, N154TS, from California's Desert Center Airport to Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport on June 8, 2026, a 2-hour-20-minute hop that deposited engineers and staff at the doorstep of Starbase. The flight, one of roughly three weekly round trips between SpaceX's Hawthorne headquarters and the Texas launch site, departed from the remote Desert Center airport—a rare deviation from the usual LAX departure—before landing in Brownsville at 17:50 UTC.

The shuttle arrives the same week that SpaceX presses forward with its Starship development program, per ongoing public updates from the company. With the next integrated test flight on the horizon, teams at Starbase are likely deep in vehicle integration and pad preparations, making this routine employee rotation a critical logistics thread in the broader campaign to reach orbit.

The 2002-vintage 737, acquired from Air China in 2023 and painted in a stealthy two-tone gray, logged 116 flights and over 2,000 metric tons of CO₂ in 2024. Its rooftop antennas and unmarked livery have made it a favorite among planespotters, but for SpaceX, it remains a workaday bus for the thousands of miles between its California brain and its Texas launch pad.