Fate of SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica … soon

Delayed FAA report coming soon

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said yesterday (Tuesday, May 31, 2022) that – after multiple month-long delays – it will soon release a key document related to the fate of SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas. The FAA said it has now set a date for publication of the final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at Starbase. The final PEA should be available within two weeks. It’s publication will be a major step forward in SpaceX’s ability to launch Starship from the site, which is located near environmentally sensitive coastal wetlands.

The FAA said on Tuesday:

The FAA intended to release the Final PEA on May 31, 2022. The FAA now plans to release the Final PEA on June 13, 2022, to account for ongoing interagency consultations. A notice will be sent to individuals and organizations on the project distribution list when the Final PEA is available.

SpaceX has been waiting to launch Starship

In early May, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said she expects Starship will make its maiden orbital flight some time this summer. It could be as soon as this month, though that now seems unrealistic given the timing of the FAA’s release of the PEA.

Still, Shotwell is optimistic, as reported by Bloomberg on May 5, 2022:

SpaceX’s massive new Starship rocket – designed to land NASA astronauts on the moon and eventually take humans to Mars – will conduct a test flight from Texas in June or July, President Gwynne Shotwell said Thursday.

SpaceX has been awaiting regulatory approvals for launches from its site at Boca Chica, Texas, including an environmental assessment by the Federal Aviation Administration that has been delayed multiple times since December. Last week, the agency said it’s working to complete that review by the end of this month.

Shotwell, speaking at an engineering conference, didn’t elaborate on how SpaceX established the latest plan. The timing marks another slip in the schedule for a rocket that company leaders have been aiming to launch since 2019. As recently as February, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Starship could be ready to launch in May.

At the same conference, Shotwell stated again SpaceX’s goal of putting human beings on Mars within this decade. She reiterated the interplanetary plan during an interview on CNBC on May 6, 2022.

SpaceX Starship was ready to fly in May

In March, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk expressed hope the company could fly the Starship Heavy Lift Vehicle into orbit as soon as this month. Musk’s declaration coincided with the FAA receiving a favorable environmental report on SpaceX’s plans to expand the Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

The tweet, which Musk posted March 21, 2022, described the extreme power of the company’s new generation of rocket motors and announced enough units were completed to send Starship on a test flight out of Earth’s atmosphere:

First Starship orbital flight will be with Raptor 2 engines, as they are much more capable & reliable. 230 ton or ~500k lb thrust at sea level.

We’ll have 39 flightworthy engines built by next month, then another month to integrate, so hopefully May for orbital flight test.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2022

Musk’s announcement came three weeks after the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service sent the document to the FAA for review. It conducted a detailed 141-page environmental review of SpaceX’s plans to expand launches in Texas. News that the draft BCO (Biological and Conference Opinion) was in the FAA’s hands came via an exclusive report from the broadcast network CNBC, which obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Risk to endangered species can be avoided

The report deals mainly with a group of endangered species living on the Starbase property and in the coastal wetlands surrounding it. The area is home to two species of endangered wildcats, the ocelot and the jaguarundi. The northern Aplomado falcon; a pair of shorebirds, the piping plover and the red knot; and four species of sea turtles, the Kemp’s ridley, loggerhead, hawksbill, green and leatherback, also live in the area.

The Kemp’s ridley is the world’s rarest and most endangered sea turtle. Yet, risk to the Kemp’s ridley and other endangered species in the area can be mitigated by simple actions if expansion plans are approved, the report said. According to the Fish and Game’s cover letter for the BCO:

In the accompanying BCO, the Service determined that the action, as proposed, is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the species listed above. The action area encompasses a relative small portion of the rangewide habitat of each of the species addressed in this opinion and small portion of each species’ population.

Actions to lessen impacts on the at-risk species includes SpaceX-funded conservation of similar habitat elsewhere, fewer lights and less noise, monitoring how the species react to the upcoming changes and making sure “anomalies” in the form of crashed spacecraft and the resulting debris removal disturb the local wildlife as little as possible.

Shorebird habitat will be hardest hit

The species with the most to lose as SpaceX reaches for the moon and Mars is the piping plover. From the BCO:

The proposed action will result in the direct loss of 446.27 acres of piping plover habitat and critical habitat from construction and operation and the corresponding conversion of wind tidal flats. The proposed action will also result in an impact to 903.67 acres of occupied piping plover habitat and critical habitat in Critical Habitat Units TX-1.

The red knot also stands to see a large portion of its local habitat impacted by the proposed expansion. However, the 446.27 acres of red knot habitat that will be affected should be offset by Fish and Game’s plan to designate more than 680,000 acres elsewhere as critical habitat for the bird. The BCO describes a similar offset to protect the piper plover, which will see just 0.4 percent of its total habitat affected by SpaceX’s plans.

Perhaps most concerning is the report’s prediction of the impact to the extremely endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, which could see the death of up to eight adults annually and the loss of three nests, along with as many as 330 hatchlings and eggs.

FAA, Fish and Game will be watching

Either the FAA or the Fish and Game Service could initiate a new environmental review of the Starbase site at Boca Chica if certain conditions arise, chief among them being the death of too many individual animals from the various species listed in the BCO.

A renewed environmental review could also be started if new negative effects on the at-risk animals are discovered, if new species are discovered to be affected by SpaceX’s operations or if the scope of review is modified in the future.

Should the number of endangered animals killed or harmed – known as the take – becomes too large, the controlling agencies will bring things to a halt. From the BCO:

In instances where the amount or extent of incidental take is exceeded, any operations causing such take must cease pending reinitiation.

Finally, the BCO could be the final biological report needed for SpaceX to fully begin upgrades at Starbase. From the BCO’s closing pages:

If the Service determines there have been no significant changes in the action as planned or in the information used during the conference, the Service will confirm the conference opinion as the biological opinion for the project and no further section 7 consultation will be necessary.

Bottom line: SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, has been waiting – and waiting – for an environmental assessment. The FAA says we’ll have it in two weeks, around mid-June.