City planning November 3, 2026 · Brownsville · Votes this week

Brownsville votes tonight on Project Quantum money for its brackish well plant, and Wednesday on its data center pause

The Brownsville City Commission meets at 5 p.m. CT tonight, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. Resolution 2026-141 asks it to approve the "SRWA Optimization Project" as a Qualifying Project for funding under Project Quantum, the city's water deal with SpaceX. The work would grow the Southmost Regional Water Authority's brackish groundwater plant from 7.5 to 10 million gallons a day. A recital in the draft resolution says SpaceX "will require additional water capacity for a planned expansion of SpaceX's facilities within BPUB's service area." Our Oct. 31 story.

On Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026 at 4 p.m. CT, a special meeting takes up the second and final reading of Ordinance 2026-1826, the city's 90-day moratorium on applications for "High-Intensity Data Processing Facilities." It is item 3 on the consent agenda. If it passes, the pause would take effect Nov. 5 and run through Feb. 3, 2027, the city says. The same agenda lists a closed session on "Project Fortress" with no other details. Our Nov. 1 story.

Next: we'll report both votes after each meeting.

Around the world

Rocket Lab launched an Electron rocket from Mahia, New Zealand, at 11:41 a.m. ET (10:41 a.m. CT) Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, and its Kick Stage deployed a QPS-SAR radar satellite for iQPS. It was Rocket Lab's 10th launch for iQPS, and all 10 have succeeded, the company said.

CAS Space's Kinetica-2 rocket lifted off from Jiuquan, China, at 7:15 p.m. ET (6:15 p.m. CT) Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, on its 2nd flight, and put the Qianfan polar-orbit group 21 satellites into their planned orbit. CCTV called the mission a complete success.

Astronauts Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space Agency and Anil Menon of NASA plan a spacewalk starting at 8:30 a.m. ET (7:30 a.m. CT) Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, to install the eighth and final roll-out solar array on the International Space Station. The job is expected to take about seven hours and raise the station's power generating capacity about 30 percent, from 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts, NASA said. NASA+ coverage begins at 7 a.m. ET (6 a.m. CT).

Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft is targeted to launch to the International Space Station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 no earlier than 10:49 a.m. ET (9:49 a.m. CT) Sunday, Nov. 29, 2026, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, NASA said Monday, Nov. 2, 2026. Along with crew supplies, it will carry experiments on drug delivery, cancer spread and muscle loss, plus a compact radiation sensor, and it will stay at the station until May 2027.

ERMIS-3, an 8U CubeSat developed by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, made a laser link with the Holomondas optical ground station in Greece, Greece's first optical link with a low Earth orbit satellite, ESA said Monday, Nov. 2, 2026. The link came weeks after the satellite's commissioning, using an optical terminal from Lithuanian company Astrolight.

Sources: City of Brownsville, Nov. 3, 2026 City Commission agenda packet (Res. 2026-141) · City of Brownsville, Nov. 4, 2026 City Commission special meeting agenda (Ord. 2026-1826) · City of Brownsville News Flash, Oct. 28, 2026 · Rocket Lab · CCTV · NASA, Nov. 2, 2026 · NASA, Nov. 2, 2026 · ESA