Why Exactly Has The FAA Still Not Approved Starship?
For the past couple of months, SpaceX and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have been going back and forth in regard to Starship’s launch approval. By now, the company has been ready to launch the second Starship prototype for a while and is starting to voice its concerns regarding the licensing timeline. Specifically, with future Artemis missions relying on this spacecraft among other high-priority launches, the delays to get approved could have much greater impacts than simply delays to the Starship program.
This brings up the question of what exactly is taking so long and how much longer before SpaceX can expect approval. The company recently shared an update on the Starship test article and the FAA. However, it was somewhat vague as more time is needed before they receive the necessary licensing.
This comes in addition to reports that SpaceX is encouraging the FAA to increase staffing and prioritize certain missions to speed up the process. Here I will go more in-depth into the FAA’s licensing process, why it’s taking so long, Starship’s launch prep, and more.
Need More Staff
Yesterday, SpaceX tweeted saying, “Starship fully stacked while team prepares for a launch rehearsal. We continue to work with the FAA on a launch license.” This has been a common theme for a while now where SpaceX makes it clear they are doing everything in their power to assist and speed up the approval process. This being said, at the end of the day, they can only contribute so much and a lot of the work falls into the hands of the FAA and its staff.
Recently, Eric Berger reported that several senior SpaceX officials spoke to them claiming that the FAA has not only slowed down the company’s progress on Starship, but even on innovations with the Falcon 9 and Dragon programs as well. However, they also clarified that the FAA is doing the best it can with the resources and staff available to them. Even still, SpaceX would like the agency to hire more staff to speed up the licensing process and stressed that programs like Starship are necessary for missions of national importance such as Artemis.
In this case, in combination with a lack of staff, the FAA has a lot more approvals and work than just Starship. This overflow of documents and somewhat minimized staff has slowed the process down for not only Starship but other important projects. In addition, with SpaceX continuing to ramp up Falcon 9 and Heavy launch cadence, among other companies, the workload for the FAA is only going to get more intense and fast.
To put it in perspective, one SpaceX official was quoted saying, “We see a trainwreck coming,” in regard to all of the work that the FAA needs to perform. “Next year could be a pretty dynamic time with lots of providers in spaceflight,” another SpaceX official said. “Our concern is even today Falcon and Dragon are sometimes competing for FAA resources with Starship, and the FAA can’t handle those three activities together. So let alone what’s coming next year, or maybe even later this year, we just don’t think the FAA is staffed ready to support that” they said.
Coming from SpaceX officials, these comments are concerning as the FAA can single-handedly hold back projects significantly. With this in mind, SpaceX in addition to helping the agency with Starship approval, is trying to help speed up the process for the foreseeable future with better hiring practices and methods. If the FAA was properly staffed and up and running, even complex items like Starship launch approval could be sped up and cleared in a reasonable amount of time.
As partially mentioned prior, SpaceX also wants the agency to prioritize specific projects. This is a reasonable request based on current circumstances. Only a few months ago, for example, speaking at a joint meeting of the National Academies’ Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board and Space Studies Board, Jim Free, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development, said Artemis 3 was in danger of being delayed from December 2025 to some time in 2026. He went on to clarify that SpaceX and the Starship HLS system in particular was what he was worried about. Specifically, he pointed out the number of Starship launches that SpaceX has to carry out to be ready for Artemis 3. Each Starship lander mission requires launching the Starship lander itself as well as several “tanker” Starships to fuel the lander in Earth orbit before it goes to the moon.
“That’s a lot of launches to get those missions done,” Free said. “They have a significant number of launches to go, and that, of course, gives me concern about the December of 2025 date” for Artemis 3. He continued by saying, “With the difficulties that SpaceX has had, I think that’s really concerning. You can think about that slipping probably into ’26” he said.
Warranted or not, these comments help highlight the importance of Starship’s schedule and the need for fast and efficient approval. If not, there could be somewhat of a large ripple effect on missions like Artemis and the return to the Moon.
A Difficult Process
FAA approval normally takes some time, but when it comes to the most powerful rocket in the world in a test environment, it gets even more complicated. Combine this with some of the issues of the first test flight and the FAA has its plate full with just this single launch. Another reason why it is taking so long to get approved.
For example, after Starship’s first test flight, there were a handful of issues. The pad was destroyed sending concrete chunks everywhere, the flight termination system was delayed, quite a bit of debris was spread, etc. This also encouraged different agencies to step in and require a separate approval in addition to the FAA’s.
After the first launch, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was not happy with the result. They were quoted saying that “a 3.5-acre fire started south of the pad site on Boca Chica State Park land”. They also said that “Impacts from the launch include numerous large concrete chunks, stainless steel sheets, metal and other objects hurled thousands of feet away along with a plume cloud of pulverized concrete that deposited material up to 6.5 miles northwest of the pad site.”
On the day of the launch, researchers from the Fish and Wildlife Service were standing by to conduct impact assessments after the launch. While no wildlife was found to be killed, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, said that post launch delays can impede biologists’ ability to conduct a thorough investigation. In a quote he said, “If there were any mortalities from the launch- particularly from concrete chunks and metal being hurled thousands of feet into National Wildlife Refuge lands that are a habitat for protected species, such as the piping plover, any carcasses would likely have been dragged off by scavengers, making it difficult to assess the full extent of impacts” they said.
This led to one of the most recent delays in approval where the Fish and Wildlife Service have 135 days to issue a final biological opinion. In other words, the ball is now in the court of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine if the water-cooled steel plate change will prevent what happened on the last attempt and ensure the wildlife and environment are safe. In regard to the timeframe, the 135-day timeline began at the very beginning of August which would place its end date around December 15th.
This even comes after SpaceX and the FAA confirmed that the company had completed all of its necessary actions. In September, SpaceX announced that 57/63 corrective actions had been completed. They shared two images of the 63 items and their status. This was a great sign as the 6 items not completed were labeled for later flights. On the documents, these items are labeled future action which suggests that they don’t need to be completed before the approval of the second flight test.
All of these changes are not only meant to help the launch itself and protect Starship, but they should also mitigate any impact to the environment. Already the new steel plate has been exposed to multiple partial thrust 33 engine static fires and held up very well. How well the steel plate holds up will directly affect the damage to surrounding structures and the environment.
The hope is that the Fish and Wildlife Service is thorough but efficient in their review. It’s also possible that NASA or the Department of Defense helps speed up this process by lobbying in SpaceX’s favor. With future projects like Artemis with the Starship lunar lander and other missions, these agencies need SpaceX to continue developing and making progress. This however is by no means guaranteed and at the end of the day these are different agencies. It also doesn’t help that the FWS was not happy with the first launch of Starship.
Either way, SpaceX is continuing to work on Starship, and as mentioned in their tweet, they are preparing for a launch rehearsal. This is a good sign and could suggest that a launch approval is closer than we think. With many more Starship launches planned for the future, SpaceX not only wants to speed up this approval, but all future launches as well. A difficult but important process. In order to reach orbit, the company will need to start launching Starship very frequently and on a consistent schedule. If between each mission there is a big FAA delay, the progress will be hindered and timelines no doubt will be missed. Another reason why SpaceX wants to fix the FAA process and improve future approvals and decisions.
Conclusion
SpaceX recently expressed its concerns in regard to the FAA and the time it takes to approve certain projects. They made it clear that the agency is doing the best it can but simply needs more staff and a better priority system. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.