SpaceX received federal approval in 2014 to launch its Falcon 9 rocket from Starbase. In addition, Tesla - Musk’s other major concern - moved its headquarters from California to Austin late last year. The privately held company also operates a rocket engine testing facility in McGregor, near Waco. “That doesn’t actually leave a lot of options. In 2014, Musk chose to build Starbase in Boca Chica because it’s close to the equator and allows for an eastbound launch - important factors in trying to get “help from Earth’s rotation” when launching a rocket into orbit, he said at the Starbase presentation in February.Īlso, SpaceX needed “a good, clear area - several miles around the launch site - to be unpopulated, or at least clearable,” he said. It’s unclear whether Musk will now move the Starship launch to Florida.Įither way, he told the Starbase crowd that he was “highly confident” his company would send the Starship into orbit by year’s end. “Our worst-case scenario is that we would be delayed for six to eight months to build up the Cape launch tower and launch from there,” he said. There, the company already has approval for a Starship takeoff. In February, Musk - who’s also CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla - told a crowd of SpaceX employees, fans and reporters at Starbase that if the FAA made the company wait again, he’d likely move the Starship orbital launch to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. To determine whether SpaceX would receive an operators license, the agency would weigh public safety, national security issues and possibly the environmental effects of a Starship launch. The FAA, which is still reading through 19,000 comments, said it again postponed the decision “to account for further comment review and ongoing interagency consultations.” It also noted that approving the review doesn’t guarantee the company would get a license. If it gets the FAA’s go-ahead, Musk’s 20-year-old SpaceX will seek a federal operators license - also from the FAA - to fly the 400-foot-tall vehicle into orbit from Starbase.īut the agency said Friday that it would push the date to complete its environmental review from March 28 to April 29 - marking its third delay since closing out a public comment period in November. To get going, SpaceX needs FAA approval after an environmental review of its Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket program at the commercial space company’s Starbase compound in Boca Chica, near Brownsville. For Musk, launching the Starship into orbit is a step toward carrying NASA astronauts to the moon - and eventually realizing his dream of colonizing Mars.
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