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Quando a base espacial tiver ficado pronta, viajaremos para lá.

Quando a base espacial tiver ficado pronta, viajaremos para lá.
When the space base has become ready, we will travel there.
From Lesson 353:Future perfect subjunctive (tiver feito)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about Quando a base espacial tiver ficado pronta, viajaremos para lá.

Why do we use the Future Perfect Subjunctive (tiver ficado) here instead of just the simple Future Subjunctive (ficar)?
We use the compound form (tiver + past participle) to emphasize that the first action must be completely finished before the second one starts. Both are grammatically correct after quando, but tiver ficado stresses the completion of the action: "When the base has gotten ready" rather than just "When the base gets ready".
Why do we use the verb ficar here (tiver ficado) instead of ser or estar for "to be ready"?
In Portuguese, the expression for something becoming ready or being finished is ficar pronto (or ficar pronta). Using ficar emphasizes the transition into the state of being ready, whereas estar pronta would just describe the state itself without the idea of it 'getting' finished.
Why is pronta feminine if the verb right before it is ficado?
Pronta is an adjective describing a base (the base), which is a feminine noun. Even though it comes right after the verb, it must agree with the noun it describes. The past participle ficado does not change because in compound tenses formed with the auxiliary verb ter, the past participle is invariable and always ends in -o.
Why does the sentence use lá instead of aí or ali for "there"?
Lá refers to a location that is far away from both the speaker and the person they are talking to (in this case, space!). Aí would mean the place where the listener currently is, and ali usually refers to a place you can physically see or point to nearby.

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