FAA Environmental Review to Allow Starship Orbital Launches After Changes
takyon writes:
FAA environmental review to allow Starship orbital launches after changes
A Federal Aviation Administration environmental review has concluded that SpaceX can conduct orbital launches of its Starship vehicle from its Texas test site, but only after completing dozens of mitigations to reduce impacts on the environment and the public.
The FAA issued June 13, after nearly half a year of delays, what is formally known as a mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for SpaceX's proposal to perform orbital launches of its Starship vehicle, atop its Super Heavy booster, from Boca Chica, Texas. The mitigated FONSI means that SpaceX is cleared, from an environmental standpoint, to carry out those launches once it implements more than 75 measures to mitigate environmental effects.
Among those mitigations is changes in closures in the road that leads to both the SpaceX site, called Starbase, as well as a public beach. SpaceX will provide more advanced notice of closures for testing and launches. It will be prohibited from closing access during 18 holidays and will be limited to five weekend closures per year. Closures will be limited to 500 hours a year for normal operations and up to 300 more hours "to address anomalies," according to FAA documents. The review is for up to five orbital launches per year, as well as five suborbital launches and ground tests.
Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) Executive Summary for Starship/Super Heavy (43 pages)
Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica (183 pages)
DannyB writes:
Among the requirements, SpaceX will coordinate with a "qualified biologist" on lighting inspections to minimize the impact on sea turtles, operate an employee shuttle between the city of Brownsville and the facility, and perform quarterly cleanups of the local Boca Chica Beach.
[...] SpaceX has already made changes to its expansion of the Starbase facility, according to the FAA, with the company removing infrastructure plans for a desalination plant, natural gas pretreatment system, liquefier and a power plant.
Space is hard. SpaceX makes space look easy, routine and reusable. The SLS cost plus contracting spice must flow!
Also at Reuters, CNN, and Bloomberg.
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