FAA approves SpaceX request to increase Starship launch rate at Boca Chica
The FAA today by email announced that it has released the final environmental reassessment that approves SpaceX’s request to increase the number of yearly Starship/Superheavy launches at Boca Chica to as many as 25.
The assessment is now available for public comment, and could still be revised. However, the FAA’s conclusions are clear, as indicated by the highlighted phrase:
The FAA is announcing the availability of the Final Tiered Environmental Assessment and Mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact/Record of Decision (FONSI/ROD) for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Vehicle Increased Cadence at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas (Final Tiered EA and Mitigated FONSI/ROD).
Under the Proposed Action addressed in the Final Tiered EA, the FAA would modify SpaceX’s existing vehicle operator license to authorize: Up to 25 annual Starship/Super Heavy orbital launches, including: Up to 25 annual landings of Starship (Second stage); Up to 25 annual landinqgs of Super Heavy (First stage). The Final Tiered EA also addressed vehicle upgrades.
You can read the executive summary of this announcement here [pdf]. The full reassessment can be read here [pdf]. Its conclusion is quite blunt:
The 2022 PEA [Preliminary Environmental Assessment] examined the potential for significant environmental impacts from Starship/Super Heavy launch operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site and defined the regulatory setting for impacts associated with Starship/Super Heavy. The areas evaluated for environmental impacts in this EA [environmental assesssment] included air quality; climate; noise and noise‐compatible land use; visual resources; cultural resources; Department of Transportation Section 4(f); water resources; biological resources (terrestrial and marine wildlife); land use; hazardous materials; natural resources and energy supply; and socioeconomics, and children’s health. In each of these areas, this EA concludes that no significant impacts would occur as a result of SpaceX’s proposed action. [emphasis mine]
As I’ve noted repeatedly, this has all been self-evident for years, as proved by the environmental circumstances at the American spaceports at Cape Canaveral and Kennedy in Florida and Vandenberg in California. Spaceports help the environment by creating large wildlife refuges where no development can occur. We have known this for decades. That the FAA and the federal bureaucracy has in the past five years suddenly begun demanded these long reassessments time after time that simply restate these obvious facts can only be because that bureaucracy wants to justify its useless existence with make-work.
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The FAA today by email announced that it has released the final environmental reassessment that approves SpaceX’s request to increase the number of yearly Starship/Superheavy launches at Boca Chica to as many as 25.
The assessment is now available for public comment, and could still be revised. However, the FAA’s conclusions are clear, as indicated by the highlighted phrase:
The FAA is announcing the availability of the Final Tiered Environmental Assessment and Mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact/Record of Decision (FONSI/ROD) for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Vehicle Increased Cadence at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas (Final Tiered EA and Mitigated FONSI/ROD).
Under the Proposed Action addressed in the Final Tiered EA, the FAA would modify SpaceX’s existing vehicle operator license to authorize: Up to 25 annual Starship/Super Heavy orbital launches, including: Up to 25 annual landings of Starship (Second stage); Up to 25 annual landinqgs of Super Heavy (First stage). The Final Tiered EA also addressed vehicle upgrades.
You can read the executive summary of this announcement here [pdf]. The full reassessment can be read here [pdf]. Its conclusion is quite blunt:
The 2022 PEA [Preliminary Environmental Assessment] examined the potential for significant environmental impacts from Starship/Super Heavy launch operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site and defined the regulatory setting for impacts associated with Starship/Super Heavy. The areas evaluated for environmental impacts in this EA [environmental assesssment] included air quality; climate; noise and noise‐compatible land use; visual resources; cultural resources; Department of Transportation Section 4(f); water resources; biological resources (terrestrial and marine wildlife); land use; hazardous materials; natural resources and energy supply; and socioeconomics, and children’s health. In each of these areas, this EA concludes that no significant impacts would occur as a result of SpaceX’s proposed action. [emphasis mine]
As I’ve noted repeatedly, this has all been self-evident for years, as proved by the environmental circumstances at the American spaceports at Cape Canaveral and Kennedy in Florida and Vandenberg in California. Spaceports help the environment by creating large wildlife refuges where no development can occur. We have known this for decades. That the FAA and the federal bureaucracy has in the past five years suddenly begun demanded these long reassessments time after time that simply restate these obvious facts can only be because that bureaucracy wants to justify its useless existence with make-work.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Good. Now, all SpaceX has to do is figure out what is going on with Starship V 2.0 and get their launch cadence up to one every two weeks.
We’re burnin’ daylight here, boys! The Mars conjunction waits for no man!
Combined with the news of the Starbase incorporation vote, the expected meltdowns are already underway in all the usual places at Reddit and Bluesky.
Richard M,
Sincere thanks for wading through the social media muck so the rest of us don’t have to. I occasionally subject myself to the first dozen or so comments on stories at Ars Technica just as a pollution monitoring exercise one might say. I think I’d need to don some PPE before going dumpster-diving at Reddit or Bluesky.
The squirmy things under those particular rocks had best brace themselves for more – by their standards – bad news. The FAA also bumped up SpaceX’s annual Falcon launch allowance at Vandy’s SLC-4E from 36 to 50. There are other bureaucratic processes underway that should soon allow SpaceX another 50 annual Vandy Falcon launches from the rework-in-progress SLC-6 and up to 120 from SLC-40 at Canaveral. There are also Starship-centric enviro-bureaucratic processes well underway anent Starship launches from LC-39A at KSC and either or both the ex-ULA SLC-37 and the notional new-construction SLC-50 at Canaveral. Starlink continues its relentless march through more and more markets too as do Tesla and Elon’s other enterprises.
I am so excited to get back to the pre-Biden pace.
As Bob had pointed out many times, they really had a knack for sucking all the momentum right out of existence.
Let’s gooooo!