Cameron County announces road closures ahead of SpaceX's 10th flight

STARBASE, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Road closures have been announced by Cameron County for Starship's tenth flight from the Boca Chica launch site with three potential dates.

On Wednesday, Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. ordered a temporary road closure for access to Boca Chica Beach as well as State Highway 4 from FM 1419 (Oklahoma Ave.) to the entrance of Boca Chica Beach.

The roads are scheduled to be closed between 11 a.m. and 10 p.m. Sunday with alternative dates on Monday and Tuesday.

Despite the alternative dates, SpaceX's website still reflects that the target launch date is Sunday with a launch window opening at 6:30 p.m.

Last week, ValleyCentral reported that the Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday morning that it has closed its investigation into the ninth Starship flight. The FAA identified the root cause of the flight mishap as a failure of a fuel component.

According to the SpaceX website, the company aims to continue to expand the operating envelope on the Super Heavy booster, with multiple landing burn tests planned for its tenth launch.

Just as with other test flights, this one will aim to deploy Starship's first payload and multiple reentry experiments geared toward returning the upper stage to the launch site for catch.

Following stage separation, "the booster will flip in a controlled direction before initiating its boostback burn. This maneuver was demonstrated for the first time on Flight 9 and requires less propellant to be held in reserve, enabling the use of more propellant during ascent to enable additional payload mass to orbit," according to SpaceX.

SpaceX continues to use these flights as opportunities to collect real world data.

"With production ramping up inside Starfactory at Starbase alongside new launch and test infrastructure actively being built in Texas and Florida, Starship is poised to continue iterating towards a rapidly and fully reusable launch system," the SpaceX website reads.

SpaceX aims to make Starship a fully reusable rocket that takes people to Mars.