The day after SpaceX launched Flight Test 6, they received a long awaited approval from the Federal Aviation
Administration.
In a draft version of what is known as an "Environmental Assessment," the FAA indicated that it will grant SpaceX permission to increase the number of Starship launches in South Texas to 25 per year from the current limit of five. Additionally, the company will likely be allowed to continue increasing the size and power of the Super Heavy booster stage and Starship upper stage.
"FAA has concluded that the modification of SpaceX’s existing vehicle operator license for Starship/Super Heavy operations conforms to the prior environmental documentation, consistent with the data contained in the 2022 PEA, that there are no significant environmental changes, and all pertinent conditions and requirements of the prior approval have been met or will be met in the current action," the federal agency stated in its conclusion.
This isn't final. As always, the FAA is required to open this up for public comment, a period which will end on January 17th, eight weeks from now. In addition to that, the agency will hold five public meetings to solicit feedback from the local community and other stakeholders to get input on expected impacts of the increased launch cadence.
And there will be significant impacts. For example, the number of large trucks that deliver water, liquid oxygen, methane, and other commodities will increase substantially. According to the FAA document, the vehicle presence will grow from an estimated 6,000 trucks a year to 23,771 trucks annually. This number could be reduced by running a water line along State Highway 4 to supply the launch site's water deluge system.
SpaceX has reduced the duration of closures of State Road 4 through the area by 85%, by moving launch preparations that could be moved to the "Massey's Test Site," a former gun range they added in 2023. SpaceX is now expected to need less than 20 hours of access restrictions per launch campaign, including landings.
Contrast the approval for 25 launches per year, pretty much one every other week, with Gwynne Shotwell's statement that she expects them to do 400 Starship launches in the next four years and you see the pretty obvious problem. Doing 25 in the first year turns the next three years to 375 launches and so on. At some point, there are too many launches at the end of the four years to be realistic. SpaceX has a pad on the Kennedy Space Center that has never actually held a vehicle or done any of the things they need the ground infrastructure to do; it's part of Launch complex 39. Plus, there has been talk about building a second launch pad on the KSC to handle Starship launches, Launch Complex 49 (last story of three), but there's talk about the impact of so many launches on the KSC, too.
All that aside, notice that in the first paragraph quoted above the FAA said, "the company will likely be allowed to continue increasing the size and power of the Super Heavy booster stage and Starship upper stage."
... SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said the company intends to move to a larger and more powerful version of the Starship and Super Heavy rocket about a year from now. This version, dubbed Starship 3, would double the thrust of the upper stage and increase the thrust of the booster stage from about 74 meganewtons to about 100 meganewtons. If that number seems a little abstract, another way to think about it is that Starship would have a thrust at liftoff three times as powerful as NASA's Saturn V rocket that launched humans to the Moon decades ago. The draft environmental assessment permits this as well.
...
For the time being, SpaceX will still need to receive a launch license from the FAA for individual flights and landings.
Will this quiet the groups trying to kick SpaceX off of South Padre Island, and restore it to being the pretty, unspoiled place they want it to be (but probably never was)? I seriously doubt it. I expect them to hit back with more and even less likely arguments.
Integrated Flight Test 6, seconds after launch. Image credit: SpaceX
Now imagine looking at this and saying, "400 feet tall and twice the thrust of the Saturn V? I remember when Starships were that small."
The FAA is certainly more, um, docile recently.
ReplyDeleteThe source at Ars Technica makes sure to point out that this ruling has been going on in the background for a long time, so that their more looney readers don't assume it's, "yes sir Mr. Musk, whatever you say. Just don't cut our jobs."
DeleteTo do more with less, first you must do more.
ReplyDeleteWould building larger and more power rockets include using the booster platform to launch multiple ships at a single launch?
To get to 400 launches,(whether that is single year or cumulative) while facing limits probably will require a new way to launch.
The quote from Gwynne was 400 in 4 years, so definitely cumulative. Figure in that since the earliest talk about Starship they talked about using it as essentially a business jet. Yeah, it will take you halfway around the world in 45 minutes, but you can bet it's not going to be as cheap as jumbo jet that gets you there in more like 12 hours.
DeleteI can't envision having multiple rockets taking off from the same platform. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like that 100 meganewtons is going to splatter sideways some distance.
Looks like SpaceX will, once they get Boca Tower Complex 2 up and running and figure out what next needs to be done, need to go into a flurry of tower-pad building. Like at least another at Boca, maybe two, and at least 4 at the Cape, or 2 at Vandenberg (but I don't see the current Cali government approving Starship launches.)
ReplyDeleteSpaceX has shown they can build and test relatively quickly, and there's plenty of room to speed up production. But having 100 or 200 Starships and Boosters sitting around waiting for 3 or 4 towers/pads is going to seriously slow everything down.
Meanwhile BO is still pursuing lawfare to slow SpaceX's future Starship launch tempo at the Cape.
Theoretically they wont have 100-200 boosters and ships sitting around. Its built from the start to be fully reusable. A lot of those launches will be tankers headed to the future depot. These will essentially be quick up and down flights. Maybe 12-24 hours for the tanker ship? Before it will be restacked and sent back up again.
DeleteThe rest of the ships will either be one way or longer duration. So they wont pile up in the rocket garden either.
Once they get rolling, 400 flights in 4 years might be a conservative number. ;)
The various complainers should exercise care: the decision in Kelo suggests the local, state, or federal government could use eminent domain to *take* nearby properties and give them to SpaceX.
ReplyDeleteThen their 'standing' goes away. No 'local community', no problem.
I wonder what their reasoning is for an 8 week comment period is? The standard comment period for both EAs and EISs is 30 days.
ReplyDeleteAnd the requirement for a separate approval for each launch is also fishy. I can see it for the first few since procedures and hardware can vary significantly initially, but after that I can't see any real reason for it.
Jonathan
P.S. I'm currently working on responding to comments on an EA after the 30 day comment period ended.