SpaceX’s “proposed annual operations” under the initial PEA. Once SpaceX has worked out enough kinks for slightly more confident Starship operations, the company would enter an “operational phase” that would allow for as many as five suborbital Starship launches and five orbital Starship launches, as well as ship and booster landings back on land after all 10 possible launches. Along those lines, as part of Starbase’s first dedicated environmental assessment, SpaceX has proposed a maximum of 23 flight operations annually while Starship is still in the development phase, including up to 20 suborbital Starship test flights and 3 orbital launches (or Super Heavy hops). Most importantly, that means that SpaceX’s Starbase PEA – if approved – will be more like a foundation or stepping stone that should make it easier to start small and methodically expand the scope and nature of the company’s plans for Boca Chica. Humanity’s future on the moon, Mars & beyond depends upon it. Please add your voice to the public comments.
#SPACEX HOPEFULLY LAUNCH FIRST ORBITAL STARSHIP LICENSE#
In a sign that SpaceX is taking a pragmatic approach to the inevitable environmental review and launch license approval hurdles standing in front of orbital South Texas Starship launches, the company has actually pursued what is known as a “programmatic environmental assessment” (PEA).
On one hand, SpaceX’s draft EA – completed with oversight from the FAA and help from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) – gives a number of reasons for optimism. Reception and analysis of the draft and its timing have been mixed. The Boca Chica site SpaceX ultimately settled on for its first private launch facilities – initially meant for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy but later dedicated to BFR (now Starship) – is simultaneously surrounded by sensitive coastal habitats populated by several threatened or endangered species and situated mere miles as the crow flies from a city whose temporary population oscillates from a few thousand to tens of thousands. Set to be the largest and most powerful rocket in spaceflight history when it first begins orbital launches, the process of acquiring permission to launch Starship and its Super Heavy booster out of the wetlands of the South Texas coast was never going to be easy. Starship 24 rolls out to the pad at Starbase a rare sign of material progress, SpaceX and the FAA have finally released what is known as a draft environmental assessment (EA) of the company’s South Texas Starship launch plans. However, given that Starship 24 was rolled out to the launch pad at Starbase on Friday, it looks like SpaceX is expecting to receive good news. As a contingency plan, SpaceX started construction of a launch tower in March. If SpaceX receives bad news, Starship’s first orbital test flight will still happen, but instead of taking place in Texas it will launch from Florida at the Kennedy Space Center. If SpaceX does receive good news, Starship’s first orbital test flight could happen as soon as June, a timeline provided by SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell earlier this month. Part of the reason for the delay is due to the more than 18,000 comments on the draft version of the report the agency received, much more than they anticipated. The FAA published the draft PEA all the way back on Septemand was supposed to publish their final report before the end of the year. The PEA will determine whether SpaceX is allowed to launch an orbital test flight of Starship from Boca Chica, Texas.
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