A couple of weeks ago, the FAA closed public comments to a proposal for SpaceX adding a second Starship launch complex on the Kennedy Space Center. That linked piece focuses on a few comments from people who live around the Cape and while they certainly matter, they're not from the population that would be most affected, the people who work on the Cape itself.
Today we learned that United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin have filed objections to SpaceX's plans for expansion. ULA and Blue both raised concerns about the impact of Starship launch operations on their own activities on the Space Center.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, called Blue Origin's filing with the FAA "an obviously disingenuous response. Not cool of them to try (for the third time) to impede SpaceX’s progress by lawfare."
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The FAA and SpaceX are preparing an environmental impact statement for launches and landings of the Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket at Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), while the US Space Force is working with SpaceX on a similar environmental review for Starship flights from Space Launch Complex 37 at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS).
Just to be clear, here's a labeled aerial photo of the pads. The KSC/CCSFS
"property line" is somewhere between SLC-41 and LC-39A - I'm not 100% sure, but I
think that pad between SLC-40 and LC-39A that's not in a pink box is SLC-41 that was built
to launch the Titan III and IV vehicles.
Image credit: NASA (with labels by Ars Technica)
SpaceX launches Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Falcon 9s from Pad 40 (including manned flights starting with Polaris Dawn) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The company plans to develop Starship launch infrastructure at Pad 39A and Pad 37. United Launch Alliance flies Vulcan and Atlas V rockets from Pad 41, and Blue Origin will base its New Glenn rocket at Pad 36.
Both ULA and Blue have expressed concerns that SpaceX's pace of operations will make working so close to them force the two of them to a slower cadence.
During the environmental review process, the FAA should weigh how regular flights of the reusable Starship—as many as 120 launches per year, according to TechCrunch—will affect other launch providers operating at Cape Canaveral, ULA and Blue Origin said. SpaceX's final proposed launch cadence from each site will be part of draft environmental assessments released for public comment as soon as the end of this year.
SpaceX plans to launch Starlink satellites, customer payloads, and missions to support NASA's Artemis lunar landings from the launch pads in Florida. Getting a launch pad up and running in Florida is one of several schedule hurdles facing SpaceX's program to develop a human-rated lunar lander version of Starship, alongside demonstrating orbital refueling.
Starship/Super Heavy launches and landings "are expected to have a greater environmental impact than any other launch system currently operating at KSC or CCSFS," Blue Origin wrote in their filing. Starship is the largest, most powerful rocket in history and SpaceX is said to be working to make it bigger. ULA's filing was a little more direct:
"It’s a very, very large rocket, and getting bigger," wrote Tory Bruno, ULA's CEO, in a post on X. "That quantity of propellant requires an evacuation zone whenever fueled that includes other people’s facilities. A (weekly) launch has injurious sound levels all the way into town. The Cape isn’t meant for a monopoly."
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"The total launch capacity of the Cape will go down if other providers are forced to evacuate their facilities whenever a vehicle is fueled," Bruno wrote.
We know, for example, that for fueling operations, the keep out zone at Boca Chica is set to 1.5 miles, while for Starship test flights, that has been pushed back to 3 miles. ULA's pad 41 is 2.2 miles from pad 39A, definitely inside that 3 mile zone. ULA has said these hazards could prevent it from fulfilling its contracts to
launch critical national security satellites for the US military. One could just as well argue "critical national security" launches would take precedence over regular commercial operations of Starship, though.
It seems to me that while expansion of the Kennedy Space Center is going to be limited, it may be time to renew the talk about Launch Complex 49 (last story of three). It's the top tight, blue-striped rectangle marked "Notional LC-49" on this map.
A story made the local news today that the Florida legislature passed a bill to develop two more large scale launch complexes in the state that went into effect on July 1. The most reasonable to me is near the old Homestead Air Force Base and now called Homestead Air Reserve Base, and the second is in the western panhandle portion of Florida, near Tyndall Air Force Base. Tyndall is close to Panama City Beach, a rather popular winter visit for southerners. Homestead is more reasonable for two reasons, the first is that being on the east coast, it would launch out over the Atlantic for mostly easterly trajectories; the second reason is being a couple of hundred miles farther south than the Cape, it gets just a little more of the extra velocity the Earth's rotation gives rockets launching here. Tyndall would have to launch more southerly, perhaps polar or sun synchronous orbits, like Vandenberg. Easterly launches would be over far too much populated state.
It could well introduce inconveniences for a company to have to support Homestead and the Cape, but I don't know how bad those costs are. The source article on Ars Technica talks about how other US launch providers, Firefly, and Alpha for example are moving to, and Rocket Lab has already moved to Wallops Island, Virginia rather than deal with the crowded facilities of the Cape area.
Piss Musk off , and boeing boeing gone will have to pay Putin to rescue the astronouts stuck in the space station.
ReplyDeleteIf Blue Origin's engineers worked as hard as their lawyers, New Glenn would have been flying and returning years ago.
ReplyDeleteULA and Blue Origin's chief complaints about Space-X boil down to "Please block their expansion, because they're kicking our @$$#$ and eating our lunch financially, and we simply cannot compete with excellence! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!"
ReplyDeleteIt does sound like a bit of sour grapes. Long term, I would be looking somewhere else for a facility. Even if this works in the short term, I can see tempers getting "frayed" on the same grounds.
ReplyDeleteI think what worries me most is that Elon Musk is a businessman first and foremost; then I look at a map of the South American bulge: Natal and Recife, each supplied with inexpensive local construction labor, as well as the more intricate neccessities easily by sea; then I begin to wonder if he'd have as much lawfare and eco-terrorist costs in Brazil; then I begin to wonder ...
ReplyDeleteSpaceX would have a far worse time not in America.
DeleteAs to moving launch services or completed products outside of the US, that's a very big ITAR violation. SpaceX can't build in the US and then move pieces parts or whole parts out of the US states, territories or military bases.
I think what I'm trying to say is that if Elon Musk is put under too much pressure or cannot make a profit, he just may decide to move the whole/entire shebang abroad - long view.
DeleteI was going to reply the other day but didn't with a similar reply as Beans made. Even in the long run SpaceX cannot, without Federal Government approval, take Starship/Superheavy to another country, even if just to launch. I was a Technology Transfer Coordinator (both ITAR and DoC Export Administration Regulations) for LM on the F-35 program. ITAR is a very strictly controlled process which the State Department manages. An Elon adversarial Administration would have have SpaceX on the rocks if it tried to move to get out from under their tyranny.
DeleteIt may not be the first shot, but it is the largest of the first shots across the bow. ULA's CEO even mentions the word I figured would come sooner than later; monopoly.
ReplyDeleteRegardless the current objections from competitors, Space X will have to tread carefully to avoid the AT&T treatment.
AT&T was a government granted monopoly. SpaceX is gaining a natural monopoly by taking risks and doing best. If SpaceX were to abuse its monopoly position to prevent others from entering the market, then yes they would need to be restrained.
DeleteBillB, a fair and accurate point. I suppose my opinion is that certain people currently present in fedgov who are opposed to Elon would seek to pull the weight of fedgov down upon Space X. Lawfare is the word.
DeleteExcept that that can still be held against SpaceX, as Judge Learned Hand's ruling in United States vs Alcoa:
Delete"It was not inevitable that it should always anticipate increases in the demand for ingot and be prepared to supply them. Nothing compelled it to keep doubling and redoubling its capacity before others entered the field. It insists that it never excluded competitors; but we can think of no more effective exclusion than progressively to embrace each new opportunity as it opened, and to face every newcomer with new capacity already geared into a great organization, having the advantage of experience, trade connections and the elite of personnel."
When it comes to anti-trust law, you can be f***ed no matter what you do if the powers that be take undue interest in you.
If one can not complete, law fare will provide...
ReplyDeleteHint, put that much effort and cash into engineering and see what happens....
We are looking at the final days of the space program as we have known it since Mercury, they all know it, this is an all in last effort to avoid becoming irrelevant in terms of being a cutting edge aerospace entity, to stop being left behind, especially avoidance of all thats invested on every level, and the actually great thing here, its a new day, everyone is going to have to pull up their pants and stop whining, get their acts together, join this true paradigm, anything less and your toast. Its that simple.
ReplyDeleteThey are scrabbling for mere scraps. Seriously. Out there, in the great frontier, as Sci-Fi author Larry Niven says, its raining soup up there. And Larry is right. Resources energy real-estate in just about limitless forms awaits those who have the courage and vision to go for it. We are looking at the cusp of this realization in practical almost unlimited wealth and prosperity.
ReplyDeleteWhats not to like?
Besides, after watching these early super heavy launches, its obvious as all get out, no way will the cape be able to sustain or handle the launch cadence SpaceX predicts for its future operations, they most likely have future plans for a base or series of super heavy bases off shore literally, either employing islands remote and or sea based launch platforms. That beast is simply too loud to run hourly launches near populated areas, and if they get Raptor 3.0 going, the db levels will be pretty outrageous, plus all the sonic booms from incoming vehicles.
Musk et all have to have all that in careful consideration already.
But for now the only viable launch sites are Boca Chica and the cape, at least till they begin full operations. What, 2-3 years at most, rate SpaceX iterates its operations?