![]() ![]() The FAA, for example, requires SpaceX to limit lighting at the site and minimize their impact on sea turtles. While there are many conditions, most are not particularly difficult for SpaceX to implement. Depending on how one counts all the items and sub-items in the Record of Decision, the number of conditions exceeds 100. In a statement, the FAA said SpaceX must take “more than 75 actions” to comply with the modified FONSI determination. The mitigations that SpaceX must implement, though, are lengthy. That avoids a more thorough, and lengthy, environmental impact statement. “After reviewing and analyzing all available data and information on existing conditions and potential impacts, as well as the mitigation identified in the PEA which SpaceX must implement, the FAA has determined the Proposed Action would not significantly affect the quality of the human environment,” the FAA concluded in its Record of Decision. The FAA’s decision was what it called a modified Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), which allows SpaceX to conduct Starship orbital launches from Boca Chica but only after making dozens of changes to its operations there. ![]() Along with it came the “Record of Decision,” the FAA document that concluded whether, on an environmental basis, Starship launches could proceed. On the afternoon of June 13, the FAA released that final report, formally known as a Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA). After months of month-for-month delays, a two-week delay was a hopeful sign to some that the review was almost complete. On May 31, the FAA said the date for completing the environmental assessment had slipped again, but by only two weeks, to June 13. That date slipped again to late March, then again to late April, and again to the end of May. But in late December, the agency said it was moving the completion date to the end of February, citing work needed to review some 18,000 public comments and coordinate with other agencies. Last fall, the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation projected it would complete the environmental assessment for Starship/Super Heavy launches from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site-aka Starbase-by the end of the year. The FAA review concluded that, with mitigations, Starship launches from Boca Chica “would not significantly affect the quality of the human environment.” For months, Starship advocates, opponents, and those simply interested in SpaceX’s heavy-lift launch vehicle have been circling dates on their calendars, only to cross them off. ![]()
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