Brownsville looks like the place for SpaceX

Brownsville looks to have won the competition for the Space X commercial rocket launchpad.

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk on Friday said his company intends to build near Brownsville, a significant development that could signal the start of a renaissance in Texas spaceflight as manned activity at the Johnson Space Center has ebbed.

“We'll probably have that site active in a couple of years,” he said about Boca Chica Beach on the south Texas coast at the end of an unrelated news conference in Washington.

Texas had been considered a front-runner for the eight-acre spaceport, from which the company would launch up to 12 rockets a year, but Musk's comments are the clearest sign yet of the company's intentions.

Read an in-depth story about the Space X development and what it would mean for Brownsville and the rest of the state at ExpressNews.com and in Saturday's Express-News.