Andrea Guzmán:

The building’s location is listed as 48804 TX 4 in Brownsville—not far from SpaceX’s Starship launch facilities—and has an estimated construction cost of $20 million for phase 1 of the project. The building, which is listed as 34,365 square feet, has a proposed mid-April date to start construction. The expected completion is January 2026. 

Ad Astra bills itself as a “project-based learning” environment that emphasizes science, technology, engineering and mathematics in its curriculum. An existing location in Bastrop has a permit to teach 21 students and welcomes children ages 3 to 9. Tuition there is subsidized for the 2024–25 school year, but the website notes that tuition will be in line with local private schools that include an extended day program in future years. 

In South Texas, meanwhile, SpaceX previously ran an Ad Astra school, KUT reported. The school’s nonprofit paperwork says it opened in Brownsville in 2021 then ceased operations in June 2023. Before then, Musk and his Ad Astra co-founder Josh Dahn operated the school at SpaceX’s facilities in Hawthorne, California. Dahn runs an online school called Astra Nova. 

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