EarthSky by Dave Adalian March 30, 2022
SpaceX might be a step closer to moving its Super Heavy Project for development of the Starship heavy launch vehicle to Florida. This follows the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announcement last Friday (March 25, 2022) of yet another delay. It’s the fourth month-long delay in approval of operations at SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
The delay moves the date the FAA says it will release the final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) of the Boca Chica facility from March 28 to April 29. In the announcement, FAA officials also said completion of the PEA is not the same as a final OK for Starbase operations. The FAA release states:
The completion of the environmental review process does not guarantee that the FAA will issue an experimental permit or vehicle operator license to SpaceX for Starship/Super Heavy launches at Boca Chica. SpaceX’s license application must also meet FAA safety, risk, and financial responsibility requirements per 14 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Chapter III.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said last month that SpaceX might move Starship’s development, as well as future launches of Starship – which is the largest spacecraft since the Saturn V – to Florida to avoid further delays.
Now we do have the alternative of the Cape (Kennedy Space Center). We actually applied for environmental approval for launching from the Cape a few years ago and received it, so we actually are approved from an environmental standpoint to launch from (KSC Launch Complex) 39-A. So I guess our worst-case scenario is that we would– I don’t know if you’d be delayed for six to eight months to build up the Cape launch tower and launch from there.
More:
https://earthsky.org/space/spacexs-starship-faces-more-delays-as-dragon-production-ends/
