SpaceX shuttle lands in Brownsville after the company's Nasdaq debut

SpaceX flew from Los Angeles to Brownsville on June 15, 2026, aboard its Boeing 737-800 shuttle N154TS, landing at South Padre Island International Airport after a 2-hour-56-minute flight from Zamperini Field. The aircraft carried employees to Starbase on a routine rotation.

The trip comes the same week SpaceX made its stock market debut on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, the largest initial public offering in Wall Street history with a valuation near $1.8 trillion, per Spaceflight Now and Realtor.com. The IPO has created an estimated 4,000 new millionaires among employees, and local real estate agents tell Realtor.com they expect increased demand for higher-end homes in the Brownsville area. Meanwhile, the FAA has grounded Starship since May 27 following the Raptor 3 engine failures on Flight 12, a mishap that left the program's most powerful booster in the Gulf of Mexico, as covered by Migflug and Tesorb.

N154TS, acquired in 2023 and registered to Falcon Aviation Holdings LLC at SpaceX's Hawthorne headquarters, typically flies three round trips per week between Los Angeles and Brownsville, with additional runs to Washington D.C., Orlando, and other SpaceX sites. The grey 737-800 carried 116 flights last year, consuming more than 225,000 gallons of fuel. On this trip, it brought personnel to a facility now at the center of both an historic IPO and a grounded rocket program.