SpaceX Starship - Starbase, TX (Boca Chica) - Launch Viewing

[Sushifou]

Merci beaucoup ! 

[ChrisC]

I did reserve the house I had in mind, south of Houma [Louisiana], and obviously am shifting that reservation to the right as the NET date slips ... I will bring my own telescope and attempt to track it manually, but I'm pretty bad at that so won't count on seeing anything

I posted the above in advance of Flight 5, but mid October was the one time I could not make that trip.  And then Flight 6's initial date of Monday Nov 18th was no-go for me, so I secretly hoped for a slip of a day or so.  And I guess the weather obliged   With the target date now on Tuesday Nov 19th, I probably will go down, but ... In the interim, I did do a tracking test with my telescope, using regular air traffic, and I'm just not capable of picking up the target in the few seconds available, with the backwards controls you get with astronomy telescopes.  I'll need some more gear (i.e. joystick interface) which will happen someday in the future, but in the meantime ... I'll just head down with binoculars and see what I see.  No house booking out there, just driving to the side of a lake and watching from roadside.  If anyone wants to join me on the bayou about 70 miles southwest of New Orleans, reach out!

[catdlr]

https://twitter.com/Space_Time3/status/1858522781488472076

Thousands of people have and will continue to descend on Starbase for tomorrow's test flight. Make sure you are following all the rules!

Highway 4 and Boca Chica Beach will be closed from 8 AM to 10 PM. This time can change so keep your eye on the Cameron County website.

Below is the launch map. Stay out of the launch keep-out zone to avoid any injury or launch delays. If you are a mariner, stay in the dedicated green zones.

[catdlr]

https://twitter.com/Space_Time3/status/1858522791047217457

Here is the beach closure map from Cameron County.

https://cameroncountytx.gov/spacex/

[notthebobo]

Thank you for your response.

We will have a car but I wanted to avoid traffic jams.

I understand that there was a lot of traffic on launch days :-/

I'm curious if you found a good viewing place in Port Iabel or if you wound up going to Isla Blanca park, for future reference.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/kathylueders/status/1877581881471893921

Last fall we had a tragic drowning of one of our folks on Boca Chica beach.  We are grateful for the continued collaboration with Cameron County and its Beach Patrol to work with us to add signage and information that helps the safety of this beautiful beach’s users.

https://twitter.com/thejackbeyer/status/1877585587906957528

Was appreciating the new signage today while waiting for the lift. Really glad this is here now.

[ChrisC]

With the target date now on Tuesday Nov 19th, I probably will go down, but ... I'll just head down with binoculars and see what I see.  No house booking out there, just driving to the side of a lake and watching from roadside.

This is a report to follow up on my earlier posts.  Launches from Boca Chica CAN totally be seen from south of New Orleans!  Although obviously conditions need to be right, and you need to know exactly where to look.

I drove down to the Louisiana bayou well SOUTH of New Orleans and successfully spotted Starship Flight 6 that launched (and returned) out of the southern tip of Texas, 460 miles away across the Gulf of Mexico.  As described in my earlier posts here, I had planned to do a house rental, and a setup with my telescope, but for Reasons decided against that and just winged it with binoculars.  I drove down to the tiny hamlet of Dulac LA, targeting literally the end of the road, as close as I could get to the Gulf there.

That morning we had heavy rain, but over the day it transitioned to light rain, heavy clouds, light clouds and (luck!) finally some clear blue sky just an hour before the 4pm launch!  A major curveball, though, was that as I approached my selected viewing spot, the bridge to it was out!  Doh!  I drove around a little more but decided that getting up on that bridge, right up against the road closure barriers, would be my best fallback choice.

I set up my very modest gear, which was just a basic digital camera on a tripod, my phone playing the NSF livestream through the cranked car stereo, and me with binoculars.  I wouldn't get any closeup photos, rather would just try to spot it with my eyes and file it into my brain 🙂  I did set up the camera to shoot a video, just in case it was visible enough, but I wasn't terribly sure about the aiming.

On that point (ha), I used the FlightClub.io subscription software (see screenshot) to show exactly where the flight path would be from my vantage point.  It told me I'd need to look at azimuth 240 degrees, which is west-southwest, however I didn't have gear to point *exactly* where that was.  However (luck!) the sun itself was also at that exact same azimuth!  It was a little higher up, but I could aim straight at (below) the sun and expect to be hitting the flight path.  Just be careful not to look at the sun (with binocs!) by mistake ...

The live coverage reported liftoff.  Nothing visible.  Nothing visible.  Nothing visible.  I got scanned the skies, came back to center.  Nothing visible.  GOT IT!  Just before it entered the cloud deck above, I spotted the big burst of exhaust that results from S1/S2 staging.  Then I was able to follow the returning booster all the way back down, through reentry, until I lost it in the ground haze.  WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!  I did it!

The third photo here is a still frame from the video I shot with the little digital camera on the tripod.  I stopped the camera rolling shortly after that, but should have let it run a little longer, because Flight 6's booster ended in that huge fireball and might have been visible.  And that will be one of MANY lessons learned for next time!  Whew!

On my way out of there back to civilization, I scoped out some other viewing locations, besides that bridge.  A little further south was the AirBnB house that I had originally planned to rent, and it looked fine.  But also there was a levee (last photo) which provided a good enough view, and is my suggestion if anyone wants to try this without a full house rental.

[njsrikar]

Hey everyone,

I'm planning to drive from Austin to Rocket Ranch for the upcoming 7th Starship launch, which is now NET January 15th. I'll be heading out on Tuesday night and plan to return right after the launch due to family commitments (kid's school, etc.) and work. I won't be stopping anywhere except to charge my Tesla Model 3.

If you're interested in carpooling and have a similar tight schedule, please let me know. We could share the drive.

I looked for a dedicated thread for carpooling but couldn't find one. If there is an existing section or thread for this, could someone point me in the right direction? Otherwise, perhaps we could use this thread to coordinate or suggest starting one if needed.

[ChrisC]

I would also mention it in the discussion thread for this launch, with a link back to here for further discussion.

Be aware that Tesla supercharging sites in South Texas are typically massively overcrowded during Starship flights.  Certainly the slow SC on SPI will be slammed, but likely also Brownsville and Harlingen etc.  So budget in extra time for waits.

[njsrikar]

Thanks for the tips. Will post a link in the other thread as well. This will be my 2nd trip to Starbase, I was there for the 6th launch, stayed at an Airbnb and saw the launch from Isla Blanca Beach. This will be my first time to Rocket Ranch.

[notthebobo]

The February 12-14, 2025 update video has a nice drive-thru to Starbase, starting at 4:35.

Note at 4:38 you can see the US Border Patrol stop-point on the return trip that ALL traffic must go through. I've never had them do anything but ask if I'm a US citizen, but please make sure you have good documentation with you, especially for non-US visitors, given the recent increase in Border and ICE activity.

[ChrisC]

From the Flight 9 flight prep thread:

Where would I find out the visibility range on this launch? I'm in the northern Bahamas for the next week or so...

Flight Club's Photographer's Toolkit (paid app) generates launch visibility maps.

And I'm happy to report that Declan / FCIO has the Starship IFT-9 trajectory loaded in and ready to go.  I just checked from Crown Haven (northern edge of Bahamas) and a) at SECO he is showing it 7 degrees up from the horizon, and b) as the Starship flies by to the south it peaks at 17 degrees.  I've seen things down to 2 degrees above the horizon (e.g. booster flight from New Orleans) so given a good view (i.e. no obstructions) you should definitely look for that Starship burn rising above the horizon.  Nighttime would help, obviously, but you won't have that yet; maybe the Starship plume will be visible when backlit.  FlightClub.io is definitely worth the money, although the payment / membership method is weird and initially fabulously confusing.

I'll ask Kaputnik to report on whether he saw it.

[Kaputnik]

I'm afraid we didn't see anything up here in the Abacos. We had a little cloud cover low on the horizon. A friend further south did catch a glimpse.