The FAA Has Delayed Starship’s Environmental Assessment Another Month
Before SpaceX can attempt the long-awaited Starship orbital test flight, they need approval from the FAA. Unfortunately, this process has become both slow and frustrating for the company along with many fans keeping track of the progress. Over half a year ago the Federal Aviation Administration began its Programmatic Environmental Assessment for SpaceX, Starship, and more. Now in late March, the only news regarding this assessment we are receiving is not promising.
Yesterday on March 25th, the FAA updated its official website with a new expected released date for the final assessment on SpaceX and specifically Starship. This update changed the set release date of March 28th and pushed it back an additional month to April 29th. The administration said this delay was meant to account for further comment review and ongoing interagency consultations.
Not everything SpaceX has ambitious plans for is fully within their control. While the company has been working at extremely impressive speeds in recent months and even years, before they attempt this launch at Starbase the FAA needs to not only release the final environmental review but it has to allow the company as well. Here I will go more in-depth into the recent delay, the FAA PEA process, and what to expect in the near future regarding the administration and SpaceX.
Recent FAA Delay
The FAA published the Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas back in September, 2021, for public review and comment. Its important to first get a good idea of why exactly the FAA is involved and what they need to do. SpaceX is working to conduct Starship and Super Heavy launch operations from the Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas. Before any of these launches could happen, SpaceX needed to apply for and obtain an experimental permit(s) and/or a vehicle operator license from the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation to operate the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle. The FAA’s evaluation of a permit or license application includes a review of 1) public safety issues (such as overflight of populated areas and payload contents); 2) national security or foreign policy concerns; 3) insurance requirements for the launch operator; and 4) potential environmental impact. About a month after the FAA published the Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment for SpaceX, they had some public events and received comments on the draft. Specifically, the FAA held two virtual public hearings to solicit comments from the public concerning the scope and content of the Draft PEA.
The hearings were held on October 18th and October 20th, 2021. At the start of the hearing, the FAA provided a PowerPoint presentation in English and Spanish. Afterward, members of the public provided oral comments. In addition, if you were unable to attend the public hearing, you could still provide a comment online. Not long after, the FAA received more than 19,000 public comments regarding the draft. A large portion of them were likely fans hoping to encourage the SpaceX project and plans in Boca Chica. While the original comment period was only supposed to be a month, it was eventually extended a few extra weeks to November 1st. This also added to the significant number of comments made. This leads up to today in late March, with the final PEA release being delayed another month. This has been a recurring theme and delays have continued to push back this environmental review. What was intended to be released only a few days from now on the 28th, has now been updated to April 29th. The real concern is that these delays continue and Starship is ready for launch and the environmental review is still not finalized. However, SpaceX does have a few things going in their favor regarding the first Starship orbital test flight.
Impact On SpaceX & Starship
While this is most definitely not good news, if the environmental review was released in April it shouldn’t delay any of SpaceX’s plans in the grand scheme of things. As of right now, SpaceX and Starship are not ready for the first orbital test flight. They are getting very close but are not quite ready. This is important because it’s not as if the PEA was released in a few days then we would see Starship take off from Boca Chica a week from now. In reality, SpaceX needs at least a few months in order to prepare for the ambitious test flight. Only a few days ago on March 21st, Elon tweeted saying, “First Starship orbital flight will be with Raptor 2 engines, as they are much more capable & reliable. 230 ton or ~500k lb thrust at sea level. We’ll have 39 flightworthy engines built by next month, then another month to integrate, so hopefully May for orbital flight test.” There are two important updates within this tweet that relate to the FAA decision and when we can expect the first orbital test flight. The first is obvious, Musk mentioned that he thinks at the earliest Starship could attempt an orbital flight in May. This means that even with the FAA delay to late April, SpaceX will still not be quite ready for the test. However, issues will most definitely arise if the FAA delays the review past April. In this case, it’s possible SpaceX could have a fully flight-ready Starship sitting on the orbital launch mount waiting for approval from the FAA.
The other important piece of information from this tweet is the fact that he mentions “First Starship orbital flight will be with Raptor 2 engines.” For a long time now, many of us have been watching both S20 and B4 make significant progress towards a possible orbital test flight. However, both of these stages have Raptor 1 engines installed. Based on this information from Musk it confirms that these two prototypes which we have seen tested consistently, will not be attempting the first orbital test flight. Instead, it will be later prototypes such as B7 and S24. While it’s not confirmed what prototypes will instead be attempting the flight, this is just an educated guess based on what’s happening in Boca Chica and Starbase. This is exciting news but also highlights that SpaceX still has quite a bit of work to do. While the company is fast, they will not only need to create and install the 39 Raptor 2 engines, but also test and prep both the prototypes and finally the fully stacked Starship. As long as the FAA releases its environmental review of Starship and Starbase by the end of April, and approves the launch, it should not delay an orbital test flight in the coming months. Even in the worst-case scenario, SpaceX has already begun working on the launch site in Florida, which is already approved for flight.
Conclusion
Right now a lot is happening in Starbase. This has been the common theme over the past few years and especially months. Workers at Starbase are preparing for the first orbital test flight which could happen in only a few months from now. However, the FAA has once again delayed its environmental review another month. This shouldn’t have a massive impact on the orbital test flight as Starship and SpaceX are not ready quite yet. We will have to wait and see how both the company and the FAA progress and the impact it has on the space industry.
