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 announced May 10 that it plans to develop an environmental impact statement (EIS) for SpaceX’s proposal to launch spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The FAA ordered this review after SpaceX informed regulators about the spacecraft’s expected launch rate and the design of the ground infrastructure required at Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), the historic launch pad once used for Apollo and Space Shuttle missions were used.
Double environmental testing
At the same time, the US Space Force is monitoring a similar EIS for SpaceX’s proposal to take over a launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, a few miles south of LC-39A. This launch pad, called Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37), will be available for use after United Launch Alliance’s last Delta rocket launched there in April.
On the one hand, these environmental reviews often take a while and could cloud Elon Musk’s goal of having Starship launch sites operational in Florida by the end of 2025. “A few years wouldn’t be a surprise,” said George Nield, an aerospace industry consultant and former head of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
Another way to look at the recent FAA and Space Force announcements about pending environmental reviews is that SpaceX appears to be finally solidifying its plans to launch Starship from Florida. These plans have changed significantly over the last five years.
The environmental reviews 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 the first three Starship test launches from South Texas.
NASA has contracts worth more than $4 billion with SpaceX to develop a crewed version of the spacecraft to land astronauts on the moon on the first two Artemis lunar flights later this decade. To do this, SpaceX needs to set up a fuel depot in low Earth orbit to refuel the Starship lunar lander before it sets off for the moon. It will take a series of Starship tanker flights – perhaps 10 to 15 – to fill the depot with cryogenic fuel.
To launch that many Starships over the course of a month or two, SpaceX will have to switch between at least two launch pads. NASA and SpaceX officials say the best way to accomplish this is to launch spacecraft from one launch site in Texas and another in Florida.
Earlier this week, Ars spoke with Lisa Watson-Morgan, who leads NASA’s human-piloted lunar landing program. She was at the Kennedy Space Center this week to learn about the Starship lander and a competing lander from Blue Origin. One of the issues, she said, is the FAA’s new environmental review before Starship can launch from LC-39A.
“I would say we’re doing everything we can to get the timeline to where it needs to be, and we’re working with SpaceX to make sure that their timeline, the EIS timeline and NASA’s timeline as far as it goes possible to work in parallel to achieve our goals,” she said. “When you write it down on paper as it is, it looks like there might be some difficult areas, but I would say we’re working on it together.”
Officially, SpaceX plans to conduct a dress rehearsal for the Starship moon landing at the end of 2025. This will be a full demonstration with refueling missions, an unmanned landing of the Starship on the lunar surface and a launch from the moon before NASA commits to sending people onto spacecraft for the Artemis III mission, currently scheduled for September 2026 is.
So you can see that timelines are already tight for the Starship lunar landing demonstration when SpaceX starts operating launch pads in Florida late next year.