The FAA says that it will take at least another month to complete a crucial environmental review of orbital Starship launches from SpaceX’s South Texas Starbase facilities.
The agency now expects that Starbase’s Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) will be completed no earlier than March 28th, 2022, delaying the process at least another four weeks on top of an initial delay from December 31st, 2021 to February 28th, 2022. However, while the FAA gained some infamy for repeatedly delay SpaceX Starbase launch operations in late 2020 and early 2021, there is growing evidence that other US government agencies – not the FAA itself – are primarily responsible for most of the review’s delays.
Information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), indicates that the US Departments of Fish and Wildlife Services and National Parks Services are the main sources of delays and the only sources of discord at this point in the process. As an example, as of the end of October 2021, the NPS had a list of at least 31 comments on SpaceX’s Starbase Draft PEA, each of which would have required a detailed response and additional back-and-forth to refine each response. The requests and critiques address virtually every aspect orbital Starship launches from Starbase. This includes details of FAA launch licenses, recent SpaceX land acquisitions and impacts on a Civil War battlefield landmark. Pad lighting, noise, paint colours, road closures, Raptor thrust, contingency planning, and many other factors.
Meanwhile, in a general review, the Department of the Interior (DOI) – speaking on behalf of the FWS and NPS – raised concerns about “launch site blast area hazards, closure of FWS and NPS lands, environmental justice (EJ) concerns, NHPA Section 106 and 110(f), [endangered]Climate change impacts, air quality emissions, species and species. It’s difficult to say how many of the concerns raised are actually serious. The DOI, FWS and NPS repeatedly stated that the hypothetical emissions from a SpaceX natural gas power plant SpaceX would cause EPA violations.
However, the draft has been published. There is increasing evidenceSpaceX is behind a brand-new power distribution line that will connect Boca Chica with Brownsville, Texas. The new lines seem to be large enough to provide Starbase enough power to completely eliminate the need to construct any dedicated power plants. Only a backup power source is required. Assuming SpaceX is actually behind the development, it’s difficult to believe that the company hasn’t communicated that change of plans to the FAA and other Starbase PEA stakeholders.
As another example, the Fish and Wildlife Services’ own list of complaints includes the bizarre request that SpaceX increase its estimate for the number of failures that will occur during future Starship testing fivefold from 10% (already an extremely pessimistic figure) to 50% because “[nine]16 hops or tests that have been performed [at Starbase]…resulted in some type of anomaly with fire or debris.” While true that many of SpaceX’s developmental Starship tests have resulted in major failures or explosions, the FWS appears to fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of those failures and SpaceX’s approach to development, which is to learn from failures and prevent their reoccurrence. Half of all SpaceX’s Starship tests would have to fail. Future Starship ground and flight tests to result in failure when SpaceX’s goal is to develop Starship into a reliable launch vehicle – not to futilely test prototypes forever.
It remains to see if SpaceX and FAA can secure the DOI (FWS) and NPS approvals needed to complete the Starbase PEA. If the parties can’t come to some kind of agreement, SpaceX may be forced to effectively restart the environmental review process from scratch and pursue a more thorough Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). SpaceX may have to abandon South Texas as a location for future orbital Starship launches if it takes years to complete an EIS.
While CEO Elon Musk recently implied that SpaceX would never abandon Starbase and might use the site as a sort of dedicated research and development facility, it’s difficult to believe that the cost of operating and maintaining an entire Starship factory and orbital launch site would make sense from a programmatic or financial perspective given that SpaceX appears likely to build a Florida Starbase for East Coast Starship launches. SpaceX already has full approval from the Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A facilities to launch 24 Starships each year.
