WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, Nov 18 (Reuters) -

P resident-elect Donald Trump may be planning to attend a SpaceX

rocket launch in person in Texas on Tuesday, another sign of his

close ties with the company's billionaire founder and CEO Elon

Musk.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday issued

"Temporary flight restrictions for VIP Movement" over

Brownsville, Texas, in the type of practice that usually

precedes a high-profile visit.

Flight restrictions in place over Trump's oceanfront

property in Palm Beach, Florida, will be lifted temporarily

during the same timeframe.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for

comment about the president-elect's plans.

A close friendship has developed between Trump and Musk, the

Tesla CEO and world's richest man who founded SpaceX in

2002. Musk frequently advises Trump, and has stayed a lengthy

stretch at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.

Musk was part of the Trump entourage who traveled from

Florida to New York on Saturday to an Ultimate Fighting

Championship event.

The launch will be SpaceX's sixth test flight to space for

Starship, the company's next-generation rocket system at the

center of Musk's goal to send humans and cargo to Mars.

NASA plans to use Starship to land humans on the moon this

decade under its Artemis program, an effort that is expected to

more heavily involve Mars missions and favor SpaceX and Musk's

cosmic plans under Trump.

Using large arms attached to a launch tower, SpaceX will

again try to catch Starship's 233 foot (71 metres)-tall first

stage "Super Heavy" booster roughly 10 minutes after it lifts

off, a novel reusability technique that intrigued Trump the

first time SpaceX tried it in October.

"Did you see the way that sucker landed today?" Trump said

at a rally after the Starship test.