A couple of weeks ago, the
FAA closed public comments
to a proposal for SpaceX adding a second Starship launch complex on the
Kennedy Space Center. That linked piece focuses on a few comments from people
who live around the Cape and while they certainly matter, they're not from the
population that would be most affected, the people who work on the Cape
itself.
Today we learned that United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin have filed
objections to SpaceX's plans for expansion. ULA and Blue both raised concerns about the impact of Starship launch
operations on their own activities on the Space Center.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, called Blue Origin's filing with the
FAA "an obviously disingenuous response. Not cool of them to try (for the
third time) to impede SpaceX’s progress by lawfare."
...
The FAA and SpaceX are preparing an environmental impact statement for
launches and landings of the Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket at
Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), while the US Space
Force is working with SpaceX on a similar environmental review for Starship
flights from Space Launch Complex 37 at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force
Station (CCSFS).
Just to be clear, here's a labeled aerial photo of the pads. The KSC/CCSFS
"property line" is somewhere between SLC-41 and LC-39A - I'm not 100% sure, but I
think that pad between SLC-40 and LC-39A that's not in a pink box is SLC-41 that was built
to launch the Titan III and IV vehicles.
Image credit: NASA (with labels by Ars Technica)
SpaceX launches Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets from Pad 39A at NASA's
Kennedy Space Center and Falcon 9s from Pad 40 (including manned flights starting with Polaris Dawn) at Cape Canaveral Space Force
Station. The company plans to develop Starship launch infrastructure at Pad
39A and Pad 37. United Launch Alliance flies Vulcan and
Atlas V rockets from Pad 41, and Blue Origin will base its New Glenn rocket at
Pad 36.
Both ULA and Blue have expressed concerns that SpaceX's pace of operations
will make working so close to them force the two of them to a slower
cadence.
During the environmental review process, the FAA should weigh how regular
flights of the reusable Starship—as many as 120 launches per year,
according to TechCrunch—will affect other launch providers operating at Cape Canaveral, ULA and
Blue Origin said. SpaceX's final proposed launch cadence from each site will
be part of draft environmental assessments released for public comment as
soon as the end of this year.
SpaceX plans to launch Starlink satellites, customer payloads, and missions
to support NASA's Artemis lunar landings from the launch pads in Florida.
Getting a launch pad up and running in Florida is one of several schedule
hurdles facing SpaceX's program to develop a human-rated lunar lander
version of Starship, alongside
demonstrating orbital refueling.
Starship/Super Heavy launches and landings "are expected to have a greater
environmental impact than any other launch system currently operating at KSC
or CCSFS," Blue Origin wrote in their filing. Starship is the largest, most
powerful rocket in history and SpaceX is said to be working to make it bigger.
ULA's filing was a little more direct:
"It’s a very, very large rocket, and getting bigger," wrote Tory Bruno,
ULA's CEO,
in a post on X. "That quantity of propellant requires an evacuation zone whenever fueled
that includes other people’s facilities. A (weekly) launch has injurious
sound levels all the way into town. The Cape isn’t meant for a monopoly."
...
"The total launch capacity of the Cape will go down if other providers are
forced to evacuate their facilities whenever a vehicle is fueled," Bruno
wrote.
We know, for example, that for fueling operations, the keep out zone at Boca Chica is set to 1.5 miles, while for Starship test flights, that has been pushed back to 3 miles. ULA's pad 41 is 2.2 miles from pad 39A, definitely inside that 3 mile zone. ULA has said these hazards could prevent it from fulfilling its contracts to
launch critical national security satellites for the US military. One could just as well argue "critical national security" launches would take precedence over regular commercial operations of Starship, though.
It seems to me that while expansion of the Kennedy Space Center is going to be limited, it may be time to renew the talk about Launch Complex 49 (last story of three). It's the top tight, blue-striped rectangle marked "Notional LC-49" on this map.
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuGc7mNuERogL7EY_8cr3Wfb0beANwhvcR0Fj5acXXhFblAMMxuvtOfJg43ax1SUtLvTXLF5gZr2Cpbr_6_WwQvhT3jxwJRCrey-0c__EU1itgAUId-sBZGtK_4afif3x1f3_TB29gn2C94KIHpQ_vTyDOjAYl0rz8oG0Ls9R-_Of4sqZVSj5opVWKSAcL/s16000/KSC_Map_New_Starship_Pad.jpg)
A story made the local news today that the Florida legislature passed a bill to develop two more large scale launch complexes in the state that went into effect on July 1. The most reasonable to me is near the old Homestead Air Force Base and now called Homestead Air Reserve Base, and the second is in the western panhandle portion of Florida, near Tyndall Air Force Base. Tyndall is close to Panama City Beach, a rather popular winter visit for southerners. Homestead is more reasonable for two reasons, the first is that being on the east coast, it would launch out over the Atlantic for mostly easterly trajectories; the second reason is being a couple of hundred miles farther south than the Cape, it gets just a little more of the extra velocity the Earth's rotation gives rockets launching here. Tyndall would have to launch more southerly, perhaps polar or sun synchronous orbits, like Vandenberg. Easterly launches would be over far too much populated state.
It could well introduce inconveniences for a company to have to support Homestead and the Cape, but I don't know how bad those costs are. The source article on Ars Technica talks about how other US launch providers, Firefly, and Alpha for example are moving to, and Rocket Lab has already moved to Wallops Island, Virginia rather than deal with the crowded facilities of the Cape area.