NASA (Label via Ars Technica)
United Setup Alliance and Blue Beginnings are horrified by SpaceX’s plan to launch its giant Starship rocket from Florida.
In documents submitted to the Federal Gliding Management Authority, ULA and Blue Beginnings raised concerns about the impact of Starship Foundation operations on their own operations on Florida’s area coast. Blue Beginnings, Jeff Bezos’ Dimension Corporate, prompted the government to consider limiting the number of Starship launches and landings, test-firings and alternative operations, and limiting SpaceX’s actions to specific instances.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk called Blue Beginnings’ filing with the FAA a “clearly fraudulent response. It doesn’t look good on them to try (for the third time) to legally hinder SpaceX’s progress.” We will get to that in the past.
The FAA and SpaceX are preparing an environmental impact commentary for the launch and landing of the Super Obese booster and Starship rocket in Setup Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Area Center (KSC), at the pace that the United States Space Force is working with SpaceX . A homogeneous environmental assessment for Starship flights from Area Setup Complex 37 within the Cape Canaveral Area Power Station (CCSFS).
Those reviews likely won’t be completed until late 2025, and only then will SpaceX receive approval to deploy Starship from Florida. SpaceX will also have to build infrastructure at both sites, which could take several years. This setup is already underway on Complicated 39A.
heavy rocket with heavy footprint
During the environmental assessment process, the FAA will have to consider how regular flights of reusable Starships — up to 120 launches over a lifetime, according to TechCrunch — will impact alternative foundation suppliers operating at Cape Canaveral, ULA and Blue Beginnings . SpaceX’s final proposed base cadence from each website will likely be part of draft environmental tests released for population comment after the end of this era.
SpaceX plans to deploy Starlink satellites, lunar payloads and missions to support NASA’s Artemis lunar landings from the foundation pad in Florida. Establishing and running a foundation house in Florida is one of several agenda hurdles facing SpaceX’s program to demonstrate orbital refueling as well as build a human-rated lunar lander model of Starship.
“The Starship-Tremendous Obese launch and landing is expected to have a greater environmental impact than any other launch system currently operating at KSC or CCSFS,” Blue Beginnings wrote. In its stream configuration, Starship is one of the strongest rockets in history, and SpaceX is developing a larger model standing 492 feet (150 meters) high with about 15 million pounds (6,700 metric tons) of propellant. This improved variant is the one that will fly from Cape Canaveral.
“This is a very, very big rocket, and getting bigger,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno wrote in a post on X. “That amount of fuel requires an evacuation zone that includes other people’s facilities. A (weekly) launch has created harmful noise levels throughout the city. The Cape is not meant to be a monopoly.”
On the website of SpaceX’s privately owned Starbase Foundation in South Texas, the evacuation zone is about 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) when Starship and Super Obese are filled with methane and liquid oxygen propellant. On an untouched base, the outpost is more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from home.
“If other providers are forced to vacate their facilities when refueling a vehicle, Cape’s total launch capacity will be reduced,” Bruno wrote.
We don’t yet know the radius of safe zones for Starship operations in Florida, but Blue Beginnings wrote that the impact of Starship activities in Florida “could be even greater than Starbase,” possibly due to the larger rocket SpaceX has launched at Cape Canaveral. Planned to launch from. If so, the neighboring foundation pads will want to evacuate all the way through starship operations.
Purely in keeping with Cape Canaveral’s geography, ULA has become a matter of great concern. Its foundation for the Vulcan and Atlas V rockets is located 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometers) below Setup Complex 39A (LC-39A). ULA said, “SpaceX’s proposal for 44 launches from the LC-39A would result in significant airspace and ground closures, resulting in felt acoustic impacts to nearby operations, and potentially the loss of debris, particles, and property.” There will be damage.”
ULA said that these threats could deter the United States military from accepting its terms for the establishment of nationwide security satellites that are important to the United States.
“As the largest rocket in existence, a mishap could cause serious or catastrophic damage while normal launch operations would have cumulative effects on structures, launch vehicle hardware, and other critical launch support equipment,” ULA said.