There are several ways to read the Federal Aviation Administration’s announcement that it is launching a new environmental review of SpaceX’s plan to launch the world’s most powerful rocket from Florida.
The FAA said on May 10 that it plans to draft an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for SpaceX’s proposal to launch starships from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The FAA ordered the review after SpaceX updated the regulatory agency on the projected rate of Starship launches and the design of the ground infrastructure needed for Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), the historic launch pad once used for the Apollo and Space Shuttle missions.
Dual Environmental Review
At the same time, the U.S. Space Force is overseeing a similar EIS for SpaceX’s proposal to take over the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, a few miles south of LC-39A. Designated Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37), the launch pad is available for use after the last Delta United Launch Alliance rocket lifted off there in April.
On the one hand, those environmental reviews often take a while and could cloud Elon Musk’s goal of having Starship’s launch sites in Florida ready for operations by the end of 2025. “A couple of years wouldn’t be a surprise,” George Nield said. aerospace industry consultant and former head of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Office.
Another way to look at the recent FAA and Space Force announcements about pending environmental reviews is that SpaceX is finally solidifying its plans to launch Starship from Florida. Those plans have changed quite a bit over the past five years.
The environmental review will culminate in a decision on whether to approve SpaceX’s proposals for starship launches on LC-39A and SLC-37. The FAA will then go through a separate licensing process, similar to the framework used to license Starship’s first three test launches from South Texas.
NASA has awarded more than $4 billion in contracts to SpaceX to develop a human-rated version of the starship that would land astronauts on the moon during the first two flights with the Artemis lunar lander later this decade. To do this, SpaceX needs to set up a low-Earth orbit fuel depot to refuel the Starship Lunar Lander before it heads to the moon. A series of Starship tanker flights – perhaps 10 to 15 – would be required to fill the depot with cryogenic propellants.
Launching that many starships over the course of a month or two will require SpaceX to rotate at least two launch pads. NASA and SpaceX officials say the best way to do this is to launch starships from one platform in Texas and another in Florida.
Earlier this week, Ars spoke with Lisa Watson-Morgan, who manages NASA’s human lander program. She was at the Kennedy Space Center this week for a briefing on the Starship lander and a rival lander from Blue Origin. One topic, she said, was a new FAA environmental review before Starship can take off from the LC-39A.
“I’d say we’re doing everything we can to get the schedule where it needs to be, and we’re working with SpaceX to make sure that their timeline, the EIS timeline, and NASA’s timeline work in parallel as much as we can. to achieve our goals,” she said. “When you put it on paper as it is, it looks like there could be some tight areas, but I’d say we’re working on it together.”
Officially, SpaceX plans to conduct a general test for landing a starship on the Moon in late 2025. This will be a complete demonstration with refueling missions, landing an unmanned starship on the lunar surface, and then liftoff from the moon before NASA commits to putting humans on a starship on the Artemis III mission, which is currently scheduled for September 2026.
So you can see that plans for a demonstration of a starship landing on the moon are already in full swing if SpaceX activates the launch pads in Florida late next year.