Austin company makes Mars trial run with Texas development

A developer with celestial aspirations is starting at ground level — for now — in Texas.

Austin-based Astreia has been cleared to launch Habitat Zero, a build-to-rent community 20 minutes from Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starbase facility on the Texas coast. Astreia was founded in 2018, the year SpaceX sent a Tesla Roadster into space. The company’s mission is developing the technology to build the first settlement on Mars.

In the meantime, it’s warming up with building sustainable communities on Earth. Its first will be Habitat Zero, a development of 125 homes in Brownsville, a South Texas city about 22 miles from the Starbase production and launch site.

Habitat Zero will have a mix of one- to three-bedroom prefabricated, single-family homes available for rent. The homes will be made with Atreia’s proprietary system in a nearby facility and will include “sci-fi inspired finishes” that “paint a picture of the future to come,” according to the company’s website.

The houses will have solar panels, Tesla Powerwall batteries and other energy-efficiency features including Astreia’s home-control system app. The development will have 30 electric-vehicle chargers, community amenities to facilitate water conservation and landscape protection and backyards connected by parks and trails. It also includes two commercial lots with highway frontage.

The Brownsville City Commission unanimously approved Habitat Zero’s planned development district last week.

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