SpaceX's ambitious plans to launch a Starship rocket dozens of times a year from NASA's Kennedy Space Center are causing a stir among some competitors. Writes UNN with reference to Tech Crunch.
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SpaceX has ambitious plans for launching the Starship mega-rocket: it is said to launch 44 times a year from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, and it is also reported to use the Space Launch Complex (SLC)-37 at Cape Canaveral Space Flight Station (CCSFS). Regarding the latter, the proposal to launch Starship from SLC-37 up to 76 times has already been discussed at a series of public meetings held in March 2024. Thus, SpaceX plans to launch its next-generation rocket up to 120 times a year within a six-mile zone on the Florida coast.
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The plans are causing a stir among some of its competitors .
Late last month, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance submitted comments urging regulators to ensure minimal disruption to other launch service providers in the region. Blue Origin even proposed limiting the Starship launch to a certain time - and giving other launch service providers the right of first refusal in case of conflicting launches.
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SLC-37 is a historic launch pad at CCSFS that launched NASA's Saturn rocket in the 1960s and, more recently, United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rockets. The pad is currently inactive after ULA launched a Delta IV Heavy rocket for the last time in April.
In February, the Space Force announced that it was preparing to begin preparing a so-called environmental impact statement, a large-scale regulatory document that examines the environmental impact of the planned activities related to the launch of Starship rockets from this site.
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The US Federal Aviation Administration is preparing a separate environmental impact statement for SpaceX's plans to launch its Starship rockets at Pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center.
Both studies aim to examine the environmental impact of Starship launches and landing operations, which involve the return of super-heavy boosters to the launch pad, similar to what happens with SpaceX's Falcon rockets.
The Space Force is considering an alternative - the construction of a completely new launch pad by SpaceX, currently designated as SLC-50. In any case, significant construction work will likely have to be carried out, including the construction of water drainage ponds, fuel tanks, and a recovery tower, and then up to 120 launches per year will be carried out from both sites combined.
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