Parts of the Starship Heavy Lift Vehicle stand waiting at the SpaceX Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Expansion plans for the site have been frustrated by delayed approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). But that approval could come soon enough to allow a Starship test later this month. Image via Wikipedia.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 SpaceXs 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. Its publication will be a major step forward in SpaceXs 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.

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 FAAs release of the PEA.

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

SpaceXs 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 its working to complete that review by the end of this month.

Shotwell, speaking at an engineering conference, didnt 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 SpaceXs goal of putting human beings on Mars within this decade. She reiterated the interplanetary plan during an interview on CNBC on May 6, 2022.

In March, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk expressed hope the company could fly the Starship Heavy Lift Vehicle into orbit as soon as this month. Musks declaration coincided with the FAA receiving a favorable environmental report on SpaceXs 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 companys new generation of rocket motors and announced enough units were completed to send Starship on a test flight out of Earths atmosphere:

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

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 Kemps ridley, loggerhead, hawksbill, green and leatherback, also live in the area.

The Kemps ridley is the worlds rarest and most endangered sea turtle. Yet, risk to the Kemps 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 Games 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.

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 Games 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 SpaceXs plans.

Perhaps most concerning is the reports prediction of the impact to the extremely endangered Kemps 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.

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 SpaceXs 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 BCOs 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: SpaceXs Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, has been waiting and waiting for an environmental assessment. The FAA says well have it in two weeks, around mid-June.

Award-winning reporter and editor Dave Adalian's love affair with the cosmos began during a long-ago summer school trip to the storied and venerable Lick Observatory atop California's Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose in the foggy Diablos Mountain Range and far above Monterey Bay at the edge of the endless blue Pacific Ocean. That field trip goes on today, as Dave still pursues his nocturnal adventures, perched in the darkness at his telescope's eyepiece or chasing wandering stars through the fields of night as a naked-eye observer.A lifelong resident of California's Tulare County - an agricultural paradise where the Great San Joaquin Valley meets the Sierra Nevada in endless miles of grass-covered foothills - Dave grew up in a wilderness larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, one choked with the greatest diversity of flora and fauna in the US, one which passes its nights beneath pitch black skies rising over the some of highest mountain peaks and greatest roadless areas on the North American continent.Dave studied English, American literature and mass communications at the College of the Sequoias and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has worked as a reporter and editor for a number of news publications on- and offline during a career spanning nearly 30 years so far. His fondest literary hope is to share his passion for astronomy and all things cosmic with anyone who wants to join in the adventure and explore the universe's past, present and future.

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