NASA (labels from Ars Technica)
United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin are concerned about SpaceX’s plans to launch its massive Starship rocket from Florida.
In documents filed with the Federal Aviation Administration last month, ULA and Blue Origin expressed concerns about the impact of the starship launch on their own activities on Florida’s Space Coast. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, has urged the federal government to consider limiting the number of starship launches and landings, test launches and other operations, and limiting SpaceX’s activities to specific times.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, called Blue Origin’s filing with the FAA “a blatantly disingenuous response. We’ll get to that in a moment.
The FAA and SpaceX are preparing an environmental impact statement for Super Heavy and Starship rocket launches and landings at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), while the US Space Force is working with SpaceX on a similar environmental assessment for Space Launch Starship Flights Complex 37 at the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS).
Those checks likely won’t be completed until late 2025, and only then will SpaceX be allowed to launch Starship from Florida. SpaceX also has to build launch infrastructure at both locations, which could take several years. This is already underway at Launch Complex 39A.
A big rocket with a big footprint
During the environmental review process, the FAA should consider how regular flights of the reusable starship — up to 120 launches a year, according to TechCrunch — will affect other launch providers operating at Cape Canaveral, ULA and Blue Origin said. SpaceX’s final proposed launch cadence from each location will be part of a draft environmental assessment released for public comment later this year.
SpaceX plans to launch Starlink satellites, customer payloads and missions in support of NASA’s Artemis lunar lander from launch pads in Florida. Getting a launch pad up and running in Florida is one of several hurdles facing SpaceX’s program to develop a human-rated version of the starship on the lunar lander, along with an orbital refueling demonstration.
Starship-Super Heavy launches and landings “are expected to have a greater environmental impact than any other launch system currently operating at KSC or CCSFS,” Blue Origin wrote. In its current configuration, Starship is the most powerful rocket in history, and SpaceX is developing a larger 492-foot (150-meter) version with nearly 15 million pounds (6,700 metric tons) of propellant. This larger variant is the one that will fly from Cape Canaveral.
“It’s a very, very big rocket, and it’s getting bigger,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno wrote in a post on X. “This amount of propellant requires an evacuation zone whenever it’s fueled, including other people’s equipment. The (weekly) launch has harmful sound levels up to the city are not meant for monopoly.”
At SpaceX’s privately owned Starbase launch site in South Texas, the evacuation zone is set at 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) when the Starship and Super Heavy are filled with methane and liquid oxygen as propellants. During the actual launch, the control point further back is more than 5 kilometers from the pad.
“Cape’s overall launch capacity will drop if other providers are forced to evacuate their facilities whenever the vehicle is refueled,” Bruno wrote.
We don’t yet know the radius of the containment zones for Starship operations in Florida, but Blue Origin wrote that the impact of Starship activities in Florida “may be even greater than at Starbase,” possibly due to SpaceX’s plans for a larger rocket. to take off from Cape Canaveral. If this is the case, the adjacent launch pads would have to be evacuated during starship operations.
Based purely on the geography of Cape Canaveral, ULA seems to have more to worry about. Its launch pad for the Vulcan and Atlas V rockets is located less than 3.5 kilometers from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A). SpaceX’s proposal for up to 44 LC-39A launches “will result in significant airspace and ground closures, result in acoustic impacts felt in nearby operations, and potentially cause debris, particles and property damage,” ULA said.
ULA said these risks could prevent it from fulfilling its contracts to launch critical national security satellites for the US military.
“As the largest rocket in existence, an accident would cause severe or even catastrophic damage, while normal launch operations would have a cumulative impact on structures, launch vehicle hardware and other critical launch support equipment,” ULA said.