Category Archives: Spacex

Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP) has delivered the Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 (PTD-3) satellite to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for integration ahead of SpaceXs Transporter-5 mission.

PTD-3 is a 6-unit (6U) cubesat built and integrated by Terran Orbital to host and support launch and on-orbit operations of the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) payload funded by NASAs Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program and developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MITLL). The TBIRD mission is the second mission in the PTD series funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program in NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate.

The mission will demonstrate a space-to-ground data transfer capability at orders of magnitude faster than previously demonstrated technologies. This technology could open doors to large volume data communications and data accessibility for advanced space exploration delivering multiple terabytes of data per day to a single ground station.

Each PTD mission consists of a 6U cubesat weighing approximately 12 kilograms and measuring 36 cm 23 cm 10 cm. Each PTD spacecraft will also be equipped with deployable solar arrays that can provide a peak power of 120 watts while on-orbit.

Terran Orbital is thrilled to deliver pioneering satellite solutions that are changing the space landscape, said Terran Orbital Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Marc Bell. PTD-3 will not only disrupt the way our Earth receives data, but also fine-tune future mission capabilities. We look forward to fostering our relationships with NASA, MITLL, and SpaceX as we continue to deliver groundbreaking technologies.

Terran Orbital is a leading manufacturer of ssmallsats primarily serving the United States aerospace and defense industry. Terran Orbital provides end-to-end satellite solutions by combining satellite design, production, launch planning, mission operations, and in-orbit support to meet the needs of the most demanding military, civil, and commercial customers. Learn more at http://www.terranorbital.com.

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Terran Orbital Delivers The PTD-3 Satellite To Cape Canaveral SFS For Integration Into The SpaceX Transporter-5 Mission SatNews - SatNews

As the market looks ahead to a new trading week during a period of volatility and a traditional lull ahead of Memorial Day, here's a recap of a few major headlines that hit the wire over the weekend.

1. Musk Harps On Twitter Spam Count: Tesla, Inc. TSLA chief executive officer Elon Musk is fixated on Twitter, Inc. TWTR spam accounts. He said in reply to a tweet that Twitter has a disincentive in reporting spam accounts, as it reduces its user numbers. Musk also suggested that Twitter's refusal to share its methodology to count spammersis making him suspicious.

2. Ethereum Founder No Longer A Billionaire: Ethereum ETH/USD founder Vitalik Buterin relayed via a tweet that he is no longer a billionaire. Buterin, who once had the distinction of beingthe youngest crypto billionaire, has apparently lost much of his fortuneamid the crypto market sell-off.

Ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain,has more than halved from a high of $4,859.50 on Nov.10.

Related Link: Tesla Drops To Number 2: Is Cathie Wood's Ark Invest Losing Confidence In Its Favorite Stock?

3. Cathie Wood's Sings AI's Virtues: Fund manager and Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood suggested over the weekend that artificial general intelligence has the potential to increase the year-over-year GDP growth rate from the current 3%-5% per year to 30%-50% per year in about six to 12 years, This, according to Wood, can be accomplished due to breakthroughs in AGI.

4. Consumer Electronics Demand Disappearing: Noted Apple, Inc. AAPL analystMing-Chi Kuo dropped a bombshell by suggestingthe easing of COVID lockdowns in China may not solve all the issues faced by consumer electronics companies. Demand is disappearing and is not deferred, he said.

5. SpaceX Seeks Fresh Funding: Elon Musk's SpaceX venture is reportedly looking to raise $1.725 billion in new capital that could increase the company's valuation to $127 billion. The company is exploring the sale of equity at $70 per unit, which is a 25% jump from the $56-a-share valuation that was prevailing in February, when it enacted a 10-for-1 split.

What Else: Walt Disney Company's DIS "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" continued to rule the roost for a third week in running, grossing $30 million from 4,534 theaters this weekend.

Musk's visit to Brazil and his talks with the nation's President Jair Bolsonaro regarding providing Starlink connection to rural schools and using the service for the surveillance of the Amazon rainforest also made headlines over the week.

For all the key biotech catalytic events scheduled for the week, read Benzinga's weekly preview.

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Ethereum's Buterin Has A Confession, Cathie Wood Makes Bold GDP Prediction, SpaceX Targets Sky-High Valua - Benzinga

May 17 (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX is poised to become the most valuable U.S. startup as its valuation rose to over $125 billion in an ongoing share sale in the secondary market, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The shares, which are marketed at about $72, jumped in valuation from last October, when SpaceX's shares were sold at $56 apiece after a 10-1 split and valued the rocket company at $100 billion.

No new shares have been issued in the secondary offering, but the company indicated to investors that they may do so later this year, said one of the sources, who asked not to be identified.

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The share sale could value SpaceX at over $125 billion, surpassing fintech giant Stripe, which was valued at $115 billion in a secondary sale.

It could not be learned how many shares have been made available for sale by the company. It is common for highly valued private companies to offer shares in the secondary market to introduce liquidity for early investors and employees.

Reuters could not determine if Chief Executive Elon Musk, who owns 44% of the SpaceX and signed a $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), are among the sellers. Musk is also the chief executive of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O).

SpaceX did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment. The New York Post first reported on the private placement on Monday.

In the capital-intensive business, SpaceX has raised $337.4 million in December and $1.16 billion in equity financing last April, according to regulatory filings.

The company competes with former Amazon.com (AMZN.O) Chief Executive Jeff Bezos's space venture Blue Origin and billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic (SPCE.N) in the burgeoning constellation of commercial rocket ventures.

SpaceX has already launched numerous cargo payloads and astronauts to the International Space Station for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), including 19 rocket launches this year alone.

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Reporting by Krystal Hu; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Elon Musk's SpaceX is poised to become the most valuable U.S. startup - Reuters.com

Spire Global, Inc. (NYSE: SPIR) (Spire or the Company) will launch five satellites later this month on the upcoming SpaceX Transporter-5 Mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Spire Space Services, the companys Space-as-a-Service (SPaaS) business, will have satellites and hardware onboard the launch for:

Spire Space Services offers fast and scalable access to space through a subscription model that eliminates the high upfront cost of building and maintaining infrastructure in space. Commercial and government organizations can deploy and operate a constellation of satellites, a hosted payload, or a software application in space with Spires infrastructure.

Spire will also launch two replenishment satellites to support its data solutions business, which encompasses the tracking of maritime, aviation, and weather activity from space. These satellites are equipped with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) sensors to collect radio occultation and other weather product data.

Spire satellites are manifested on the mission through a multi-launch agreement between Spire and Exolaunch, which includes access to the Transporter missions through Exolaunchs long-term launch arrangements with SpaceX. Exolaunch, a global provider of launch, in-space logistics and deployment services, will also provide Spire with deployment and integration services. Spire will launch additional satellites on SpaceX Transporter missions later this year.

The upcoming launch is an exciting moment with the most Space Services customers on board a single launch to date, said Joel Spark, co-founder and general manager of Space Services, Spire. Were excited to see more organizations deploying and scaling their constellations using our established space, ground, and web infrastructure, leveraging the experience weve built across 150+ spacecraft, 30+ launch campaigns, and 350 years of space heritage to get their business launched quickly and with low risk.

Working with Spire Space Services is allowing us to rapidly scale the Myriota Network to meet the high demand for IoT services, said Dr. David Haley, CTO and co-founder, Myriota. Since commencing work In 2021, the highly collaborative Spire and Myriota partnership has been opening up greater message size and reduced latency for our customers across agriculture, oil and gas, construction, environmental monitoring and defense industries. With three additional satellites the program is well and truly in full swing. Well be continuing the rapid acceleration of our service and its features to enable better outcomes for our customers through simple, affordable access to data, anywhere.

We at DASA, working with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Space Program, are excited to work with Spire to deploy a low-cost, rapid concept-to-technology demonstrator for global monitoring and geolocating signals, said Fiona Hutchinson, Project Manager, DASA. These capabilities not only enable military and security operations, but also underpin countless activities essential to our safety and way of life.

Spire (NYSE: SPIR) is a global provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, offering access to unique datasets and powerful insights about Earth from the ultimate vantage point so that organizations can make decisions with confidence, accuracy, and speed. Spire uses one of the worlds largest, multi-purpose, satellite constellations to source hard to acquire, valuable data and enriches it with predictive solutions. Spire then provides this data as a subscription to organizations around the world so they can improve business operations, decrease their environmental footprint, deploy resources for growth and competitive advantage, and mitigate risk. Spire gives commercial and government organizations the competitive advantage they seek to innovate and solve some of the worlds toughest problems with insights from space. Spire has offices in San Francisco, Boulder, Washington DC, Ontario, Glasgow, Oxfordshire, Luxembourg, and Singapore.

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Spire Global's SPaaS Smallsats To Partake Of The SpaceX Transporter-5 Rideshare Mission SatNews - SatNews

The team of four astronauts for the Polaris Dawn mission will start training for their upcoming spaceflight later this week at SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The Polaris Dawn is the first of three crewed space missions under the Polaris Program, which kickstarts later this year. To be commanded by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, the Polaris team will launch aboard the SpaceXFalcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Polaris Program, as per its officialprofile, is a "first-of-its-kind" effort, which aims to advance human spaceflight capabilities while raising funds and awareness for important causes on Earth. The program has been named after the constellation of three stars, Polaris, also called the North Star which "has beena guiding light throughout human history to help navigate the world around us and the sky above", the profile says.

But most importantly, the objective of Polaris is to demonstrate operational capabilities that will enable humans with the exploration of the Moon, Mars and beyond. A total of three spaceflights will be conducted under the program two of which will be SpaceX Dragon flights and the third and final being the first-ever manned Starship mission. During each of these missions, the selected astronauts will carry out in-space technology demonstrations and research.

The Polaris Dawn, which is expected to take off in the fourth quarter of 2022, isthe first of three planned spaceflights. Under this mission, the crew of four astronauts will fly higher than any Dragon mission to date and reach the highest Earth orbit. During Polaris Dawn, the astronauts will spend five days in orbit and test several new technologies including the first Starlink laser-based communications in space. Interestingly, the crew will also conduct the first-ever private spacewalk donning the newly made SpaceX suits.

Similar to the first all-civilian SpaceX mission- Inspiration4-Polaris Dawn too would raise funds for theStJude Childrens Research Hospital. The Inspiration4 mission, which was conducted in September 2021,was also commanded by Isaacman and had raisedover $240 million for St. Jude's. For his next mission, Isaacman will be accompanied by three new astronauts-Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, andSarah Gillis. Tap here to read all about the crew members.

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SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew to begin training for highest-ever orbital spaceflight this week - Republic World

SpaceX plans to launch 53 more Starlink internet satellites and land the returning rocket on a ship at sea early Wednesday morning (May 18), and you can watch all the action live.

A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with 53 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday at 6:20 a.m. EDT (1020 GMT). The rocket's first stage will land on the SpaceX droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean about nine minutes after liftoff, if all goes according to plan.

You can watch it all unfold here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. Coverage is expected to begin about 10 minutes before liftoff. The livestream will end shortly after booster landing, if previous Starlink webcasts are any guide. So the live coverage likely won't include deployment of the Starlink satellites, which is expected to occur about an hour after launch.

Related: SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation launches in photos

Starlink is SpaceX's broadband constellation, which currently consists of more than 2,300 satellites. That number has been growing rapidly lately; SpaceX has launched 20 missions already in 2022, and 13 of them have been dedicated Starlink flights.

But the Starlink population could get truly huge in the not-too-distant future; the next-generation version of the constellation may eventually consist of up to 30,000 satellites.

Wednesday's mission will be the fifth for this particular Falcon 9 first stage. Such reuse is a priority for SpaceX and its founder and CEO, Elon Musk, who views rapid and repeated reflight as the key breakthrough needed to make ambitious exploration feats such as Mars settlement economically feasible.

SpaceX has landed Falcon 9 first stages 113 times during orbital missions to date and has reflown boosters on 92 occasions, according to the company's website.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.

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Watch SpaceX launch 53 new Starlink satellites early Wednesday - Space.com

A spacecraft container is unloaded from a transport ship Saturday at Port Canaveral, Florida. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now

A transport ship delivered the SES 22 and Nilesat 301 geostationary communications satellites to Cape Canaveral over the weekend to prepare for two launches on SpaceX rockets in June, completing a trans-Atlantic journey from France originally planned on Russian-owned cargo planes.

The satellites will be prepared for launches on two Falcon 9 rockets next month. Nilesat 301 is scheduled for liftoff June 10 from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and SES 22 is set for launch in late June.

Thales Alenia Space, which assembled the satellites in Cannes, France, originally planned to deliver the Nilesat 301 and SES 22 spacecraft to Cape Canaveral on Russian-owned Antonov An-124 cargo aircraft. The An-124 airplanes operated by Russian-based Volga-Dnepr Airlines have been used for decades across the space industry to haul heavy satellites from their factories to their launch sites.

But Russian-owned aircraft have been banned from U.S. and European Union airspace in the wake of Russias military attack on Ukraine. That forced satellite companies to find a backup plan for transporting their spacecraft.

Nilesat 301 was ready to leave its factory in France at the end of March for a scheduled launch on a Falcon 9 rocket at the end of April. The launch was delayed to allow time for Thales to secure another means of transportation for the satellite.

Officials settled on transporting Nilesat 301 by ship. SES 22, also built by Thales, traveled from France to Florida on the same vessel.The ship carrying Nilesat 301 and SES 22 left a port near Marseille, France, in late April and arrived at Port Canaveral on Saturday.

Teams unloaded the containers holding the satellites to be trucked inside Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for launch preparations. Engineers will test each satellite to confirm they remain healthy after arriving from France, then load maneuvering propellants into the spacecraft. Finally, the satellites will be encapsulated inside the payload shrouds of their Falcon 9 rockets.

The launch schedule for SES 22 was not impacted by the change in transport plans, according to a spokesperson for SES, the Luxembourg company that owns the satellite.

Nilesat 301will provide digital broadband and internet connectivity services for the Egyptian operator Nilesat. SES 22 will provide C-band television and data services in the United States. The satellites will weigh about 3.5 to 4 metric tons once fully fueled for liftoff.

The Nilesat 301 and SES 22 communications satellites will operate in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.

SpaceX will launch each satellite into an elongated, oval-shaped transfer orbit, then the spacecraft will use on-board propulsion to reach their final operating positions.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Geostationary comsats delivered to Florida for SpaceX launches in June Spaceflight Now - Spaceflight Now

Following his meeting with Indonesian president Joko Widodo over the weekend at the SpaceX site in Boca Chica, Texas, Elon Musk says he is considering a visit to Indonesia later this year to explore investment opportunities in the republic, Bloomberg reports.

During the visit, the Indonesian leader who was in the country to attend the US-Asean Special Summit extended an invite to Musk, who replied, Hopefully in November, thank you for the invitation. The invitation to Musk comes after Tesla representatives paid a visit to a nickel production hub in Morowali, Central Sulawesi last week.

The meeting between Musk and Jokowi had been arranged last month by the countrys coordinating maritime affairs and investment minister Luhut Pandjaitan, in the hopes of getting Tesla to invest in Indonesia, reports The Jakarta Post.

The government has held talks on potential partnerships with Musks teams over course of the last few years, including on the production of Tesla EVs and even the possibility of a SpaceX rocket launch site in the country, the latter part of the countrys ambition to join the space race, but no agreements have been reached so far.

Indonesias discussions with Tesla on the probability of setting up a factory in the republic to make batteries for its EVs fell through in March, apparently because Tesla was only interested in building batteries for energy storage systems (i.e. its Powerwall) instead of that for its cars. However, it was reported last month that Indonesia had restarted talks with Musk to join the countrys burgeoning nickel and EV industry.

The country has long been pushing for investments in EV and battery manufacturing, touting its reserves of nickel and cobalt used in the production of lithium-ion batteries as well as bauxite, which can be turned into aluminium. Indonesia, which has the worlds biggest nickel reserves, wants to build a full supply chain for extracting battery chemicals from the metal rather than simply exporting it.

Jokowis invitation to Musk reiterates the countrys intent to continue its efforts to develop its EV industry, and not just with the production of raw materials. In August last year, he said that the country had a great opportunity in developing industries from upstream to downstream, and that it should focus on the lithium battery industry as well as the production of EVs.

Malaysia has also extended an invitation to Tesla to invest in the country. Last week, prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said he had suggested to Tesla to invest in Malaysia and build its EVs here.

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Jokowi meets Elon Musk at SpaceX site in Texas, invites Tesla boss to visit Indonesia later this year - paultan.org - Paul Tan's Automotive News

Elon Musk may have founded most of his companies in California, but hes become increasingly critical of the state as a place to do business.

The Tesla (TSLA) - Get Tesla Inc ReportCEO made that much clear in recent comments during a virtual appearance at the recent All-In Conference held in Miami.

California used to be the land of opportunity, Musk told the audience. However its turned into the land of taxes, overregulation and litigation and this is not a good situation.

Musk became increasingly critical of the state as Tesla ramped up its production facilities. He famously built the first so-called gigafactory in neighboring Nevada, after winning generous tax concessions from that state. He went on to build facilities in Shanghai and near Berlin. But when the time came for a new U.S. factory, Musk opted for Texas.

He boasted that the recently opened Gigafactory near Austin a building three times the size of the Pentagon was completed in just 18 months.

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If you had a gun to [California Governor Gavin Newsoms] head and said we need to start building this factory right now, he couldnt do it, Musk said. There are so many regulatory agencies and so many litigators in California that want to stop you from doing anything that even if youre the governor of the state, you cannot get it done, he added.

Musk laid the blame for Californias challenges on its political environment.

Its a one-party state, Musk complained, noting that Democrats hold a super-majority in the state legislature and all of the statewide elected offices. The states elected officials will never be responsive except to the people that funded them, he added.

Ultimately the people of California have to get fed up and demand change, Musk added. Theres got to be an above 0% chance of the Republicans winning in California.

Of the many companies Musk founded or boosted over the years, most were founded in California, including PayPal (PYPL) - Get PayPal Holdings, Inc. Report, SpaceX, the Boring Company, Neuralink and Tesla.

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Elon Musk Says Three Things Are Ruining California - TheStreet

A mural of Elon Musk in downtown Brownsville by Alexander Gonzalez-Hernandez. Gaige Davila/ Texas Public Radio hide caption

A mural of Elon Musk in downtown Brownsville by Alexander Gonzalez-Hernandez.

The city of Brownsville's motto used to be, "On the Border, By the Sea" to indicate its geography at the Southern tip of Texas. In 2019, it changed to "On the Border, By the Sea, and Beyond" an ode to SpaceX, which has a facility about 23 miles east of the city.

In downtown Brownsville, there are space-themed murals. One of them is of an astronaut, on the side of a hot dog stand called Space Dog Station.

"When I decided to get this business, I thought, 'You know what, I need to incorporate (space) into the business,' because I know it's going to be poppin', as the young kids say," Rebecca Rodriguez says from the window of Space Dog Station. Rodriguez opened the hot dog stand last year, a hit among the space enthusiast crowd, though she acknowledges the split between those who support and are against SpaceX's presence in Brownsville.

Space Dog Station owner Rebecca Rodriguez. Gaige Davila/ Texas Public Radio hide caption

Space Dog Station owner Rebecca Rodriguez.

"Elon Musk is bringing a lot of changes here into the city," Rodriguez says. "I think a lot of people, just the same way they don't like it, a lot of people do go for it as well."

Some of that change includes rising housing costs. Texas A&M University data show median housing prices have increased in the Brownsville-Harlingen metro by 26% since 2020, from $184,900 to $233,000. The median yearly family income for Brownsville residents is just over $40,000, a third less than the country as a whole, according to Census data.

One resident who has endured these rising costs is Christopher Basald, a Native American studies scholar and member of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas. He grew up in Brownsville and moved back in 2017.

He lived in a duplex for 18 months before his former landlord sold the property and asked him to leave.

Basald eventually found a smaller apartment with a higher rent. Left there was an eviction notice taped to the window for the previous tenant. He says it scared him.

"I have a full-time job with healthcare benefits," Basald says. "Most people in Brownsville do not have that. And if it was that difficult for me, how much more difficult is it going to be for somebody else if their landlord tells them that they need to get out and find an apartment?"

Basald sees parallels between his housing ordeal and the plight of his ancestors who were forced off this land by colonists. The Carrizo Comecrudo tribe's ancestral land stretches along the Rio Grande river and onto the coast, where SpaceX's site lies.

Christopher Basald, PhD, stands at Resaca De Las Palmas State Park in Brownsville. Basald was forced to find new housing when rents started raising across the city. Gaige Davila/ Texas Public Radio hide caption

Christopher Basald, PhD, stands at Resaca De Las Palmas State Park in Brownsville. Basald was forced to find new housing when rents started raising across the city.

"What SpaceX is doing is taking advantage of the long history of economic exploitation of human beings in this valley," Basald says. "That whole structure of inequality that makes life so difficult, that history is not lost on me."

Some attribute the rising costs to CEO Elon Musk directly, who tweeted last year encouraging people to move to Brownsville for SpaceX jobs.

"We all refer to that as, kind of, the 'day one,' " says Nick Mitchell-Bennett, executive director for affordable housing organization Come Dream, Come Build, (CDCB).

Homes in Brownsville are on the market for less than two weeks before they're sold, Mitchell-Bennett says. Before Musk's tweet, a Brownsville home would take up to three months to find a buyer.

Local organizers protest Bekah Hinojosa's arrest for allegedly spraying graffiti below an Elon Musk-funded mural in downtown Brownsville. The mural, on the side of the Capitol Theater, can be seen behind them. Gaige Davila/ Texas Public Radio hide caption

Local organizers protest Bekah Hinojosa's arrest for allegedly spraying graffiti below an Elon Musk-funded mural in downtown Brownsville. The mural, on the side of the Capitol Theater, can be seen behind them.

"Whether they're folks moving here for SpaceX or people trying to get into the market, it has ramped up," Mitchell-Bennett says.

Through the Starship project, Musk hopes to send people to Mars and colonize the planet. The company has tested Starship prototypes at its Brownsville site. Only one has avoided exploding.

SpaceX's latest prototype is the largest rocket ever created at 395 feet tall. SpaceX plans to launch the Starship, attached to a booster, in a suborbital flight, then expand its Boca Chica site near Brownsville by nearly 20 acres.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced last month, however, that it's delaying whether to grant environmental clearance to the Starship project's lofty ambitions. In February, Musk said he would move the Starship program to Florida if the FAA issued an EIS, or Environmental Impact Statement. An EIS can take a few years to complete.

SpaceX did not respond to NPR's requests for comment.

Mayor Trey Mendez says Brownsville is on its way to becoming "New Space City." During a press conference last year announcing space-business investor firms opening in Brownsville, Mendez said the city needed to continue attracting more space-related companies.

"If you create that atmosphere, this business-friendly environment like we are doing, we are going to be able to attract that," Mendez said.

Mendez did not respond to NPR's interview requests.

Artist and writer Josu Ramirez stands before one of his pieces at his gallery "Who's the Bandit?" in Weslaco at South Texas College's library. Gaige Davila/ Texas Public Radio hide caption

Artist and writer Josu Ramirez stands before one of his pieces at his gallery "Who's the Bandit?" in Weslaco at South Texas College's library.

One local artist has documented how SpaceX has changed Brownsville: Josu Ramrez the co-founder and cultural organizer for Trucha Media. He has written extensively on Brownsville and its relationship to SpaceX, including his exhibittitled "Who's the Bandit?"at South Texas College's Weslaco campus.

Most of the pieces are made with "bandit signs" Ramrez collected around the Rio Grande Valley. The signs are usually crudely-written and illegally posted, with phrases like "We Buy Houses" and a phone number written on them.

Ramrez says two pieces in particular, portraits of Musk and Mendez, show who benefits from Brownsville leadership's ambition to become "New Space City." The painting of Musk is titled "Portrait of a Gentrifier," and the portrait of Mendez, "Portrait of a Bootlicker."

"These types of cultural works and art are helping create a narrative around what "New Space City" is and what they're trying to do," Ramrez says, referring to Brownsville's space-themed murals. "I think there's space for other people like myself and other artists who are countering these narratives put in place by the richest person in the world."

Ramrez hopes that, through this exhibit, he can help shift opinion on SpaceX's presence in Brownsville.

"Arts and culture really is a shortcut to understanding policy," he says. "People feel a different kind of way after they see these portraits and maybe that will change into a public opinion once enough people see it."

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As SpaceX expands in Texas city, housing costs there are skyrocketing - NPR