SpaceX has made a great deal of progress at Starbase since our first visit in January 2021. Back then, their launch facility was rather barren – with the pad for Starship only consisting of a couple of columns. Fast forward to today, and there is now a massive tower that exceeds the height of neighboring South Padre Island’s tallest building. The 146m (479ft) tall launch tower also stands right beside a fully completed launch mount and a veritable city of fuel tanks.

By the time you are reading this, it is possible that the fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket has already completed its first flight! With this in mind, we thought it appropriate to look back at some of the launch vehicles that led to such a momentous moment. Starhopper was the first, leaping off the ground for the first time on July 25, 2019. SpaceX then later progressed to full-size Starship launch vehicles such as SN9 pictured in this article.

Along with photos of the launch vehicles, we included panoramas of the two main areas of Starbase from over two years ago. As you can see, the production facility had significantly more infrastructure than the launch site at the time. It was certainly exciting to witness and document some of the early days of this incredible place.