SpaceX‘s Starship rocket is ready for its second launch, awaiting federal approvals, and eager to improve over an April launch that successfully lifted off but disintegrated over the Gulf of Mexico four minutes into flight.

Kathryn Lueders, the new executive general manager at Starbase on Boca Chica Beach, gave that assessment on Thursday at an event hosted by the South Padre Island Chamber of Commerce at the Holiday Inn Resort. The chamber’s titled “coffee and conversation” brunch drew a large crowd. Those in attendance received some rare insights into SpaceX operations at Boca Chica. The company has kept a relatively low public profile in its handful of years in the Rio Grande Valley despite the presence of its tall rockets just across the Laguna Madre from the Island.

Lueders indicated that will be changing as part of her mission is to better connect SpaceX to area communities. There are a number of infrastructure issues that SpaceX needs to improve upon in making local connections, Lueders said, including housing and educational issues. She made clear SpaceX is intent on a longstanding presence in Cameron County and the Valley as a whole.  

“We are staying and we will be your neighbors in the Valley,” Lueders said. “Cameron County and the area overall has been very good to us.”

Testing & Learning

Lueders is a former NASA associate administrator with deep experience in space flight after helping to oversee several Space Shuttle flights.

She began her new job with SpaceX in May. Lueders and other Starbase administrators are working closely with the Federal Aviation Administration to focus on 60-plus corrective measures the agency says SpaceX must address before a second Starship launch receives a license. SpaceX’s chief executive officer, Elon Musk, announced over social media that his company has made all of the required changes mandated by the FAA. The federal agency has yet to say much publicly about its review process in considering a second Starbase launch. 

Lueders said SpaceX will be ready for a launch by month’s end and has worked intently to take corrective actions. The April launch had a spectacular launch before the nearly 400-foot-tall rocket fell apart and tumbled into pieces over the Gulf. The launch was viewed by thousands of spectators on the Island but was less popular on Port Isabel and Laguna Vista, where debris and ash from the launch fell over those coastal communities.

“We’re trying to do things that haven’t been done before,” Lueders said of launching and putting into orbit a rocket described as the largest and most powerful ever flown. “We learned a ton from the first flight. We believe in building, testing, flying and learning.”