by The Federal Aviation Administration has finally finished an environmental review of SpaceX’s plans to launch its Starship megarocket from Boca Chica, Texas, and found no impediments to licensing long-delayed orbital test flights, officials said Monday.
“The FAA determined that the proposed action would have no significant environmental consequences and issued a mitigated finding of no significant impact/decision record,” according to the executive summary of the FAA’s programmatic environmental assessment, or PEA.
“In the event that a future license or permit is issued to SpaceX to perform any aspect of the proposed action, the FAA will ensure that SpaceX implements (specified) mitigation measures as conditions to the license.”
Before a launch license can be issued, SpaceX will have to carry out 75 measures to minimize environmental impacts and the FAA will have to conduct “public safety, national security and other analyses,” the agency said in a statement. “The license application is still pending.”
But the FAA concluded that a more complicated Environmental Impact Statement will not be necessary. If all goes well, SpaceX may go ahead with a long-delayed orbital test flight of its Starship-Super Heavy rocket in the coming months.
SpaceX tweeted: “One step closer to Starship’s first orbital flight test.”
One step closer to Starship’s first orbital flight test https://t.co/MEcQ6gST6Q pic.twitter.com/jxqEsM62gc
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 13, 2022
The successful conclusion of the programmatic evaluation is a major victory for SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who sees the Starship vehicle as the company’s future and a key step toward human exploration of the solar system.
But the decision was a blow to environmentalists and members of the public who argued that Starship’s operations will damage the coastal environment of South Texas and harm nearby wildlife and communities. It is not yet known if legal challenges may be filed.
“SpaceX has shown blatant disregard for the natural habitats of Boca Chica,” the American Bird Conservancy said in a statement. “The area here is not just an empty space for debris and debris from the fuselage.”
SpaceX has shaken up the domestic and international launch industry with its relatively low-cost, partially reusable rockets.
The company’s workhorse, the Falcon 9, is a two-stage medium-lift rocket with a reusable first stage and nose cone fairing that has flown 157 times since its maiden flight in 2010, and 23 times this year alone. . The rocket is used to launch civil and government satellites and Cargo Dragon capsules that carry supplies and equipment to and from the International Space Station.
The Falcon 9 is also used to launch the Crew Dragon spacecraft that carries American and partner agency astronauts to and from the space station, ending NASA’s post-shuttle reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. To date, SpaceX has sent five NASA crews to the space station and two civilian crews, one to the station and one to low Earth orbit.
In addition to the “single-mast” Falcon 9, SpaceX has launched three more powerful Falcon Heavy rockets, using three Falcon 9s linked together as a 27-engine first stage.
But the Super Heavy and Starship rockets that SpaceX is designing and want to launch from Boca Chica and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida are in a class of their own.
The reusable first stage, the Super Heavy, will be powered by 33 Raptor engines that burn liquid oxygen and methane, generating a combined thrust of 16 million pounds, or twice the liftoff power of NASA’s Space Launch System lunar rocket. Musk tweeted a photo of the Super Heavy’s engines over the weekend.
33 Raptor rocket motors, each producing 230 metric tons of force pic.twitter.com/flQLb62MgZ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2022
The reusable upper stage, Starship, will use six to nine Raptor engines and be able to launch cargo, astronauts, or both. SpaceX has a $2.9 billion contract to develop a version of the Starship that would serve as a piloted lander, carrying NASA’s first astronauts back to the lunar surface in the agency’s Artemis lunar program.
Together, the Starship and Super Heavy rockets will stand 400 feet tall and 30 feet wide, a gargantuan rocket that will dwarf any space vehicle ever built.
SpaceX has launched multiple test flights of Starship prototypes from Boca Chica using up to three Raptor engines at once to reach altitudes of up to nearly nine miles. various vehicles burst in flight, during landing or just after landing, but the most recent from SpaceX test flight in May 2021 it was all a success.
SpaceX has “stacked” a Super Heavy and Starship on a launch pad in Boca Chica, but the super rocket has yet to launch. For its initial orbital test flight, the company intends to “land” the Super Heavy in the Gulf of Mexico while Starship goes up into space, circles the planet, and plunges into the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.
With Monday’s finding that an environmental impact statement is not required for Boca Chica, the FAA will presumably now be able to consider a launch license, assuming SpaceX meets mitigation requirements.
The FAA began its environmental review of SpaceX’s plans for Boca Chica in November 2020, but the long-awaited report was delayed four times after agency officials said SpaceX made multiple changes to its original application. Additionally, the FAA had to respond to some 18,000 comments from the public.
Apparently worried about a possible negative outcome, Musk said SpaceX would consider moving all of its Starship-Super Heavy launch operations to the Kennedy Space Center, where the company already leases Pad 39A, a former space shuttle and Apollo launch complex.
SpaceX is building a Super Heavy pad at Launch Complex 39A, where Musk has said the company will launch “operational” missions. But SpaceX wants to conduct test flights at Boca Chica, and the FAA review, after months of delay, has taken the company an important step in that direction.
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