A permit has been granted for SpaceX to ramp up the launches of its Starship mega rocket from South Texas.
A final environmental assessment (EA) for Starship operations at Starbase, the SpaceX facility near Brownsville now known as the newest city in Texas, has been released by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The report grants SpaceX's request to launch 25 Starships from Starbase per year. In addition, the site is allowed to land up to 25 Super Heavy boosters and upper-stage spacecraft each year.
"After reviewing and analysing this Final Tiered EA, including all available data and information on existing conditions and potential impacts, the FAA has determined that modifying SpaceX’s vehicle operator license supporting the increased launch and landing cadence of the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle would not significantly impact the quality of the human environment within the meaning of NEPA," the FAA wrote in a newly released 53-page document called a Mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and Record of Decision (ROD). (NEPA is the National Environmental Policy Act.)
"Therefore, the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement is not required, and the FAA is independently issuing this Mitigated FONSI and ROD," it adds.
On Tuesday, May 6 at 9:17 p.m. ET (local time), Falcon 9 launched 28 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the seventh flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew-9, RRT-1, Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1, Fram2, and now three Starlink missions.
