The Department of the Air Force (along with cooperating agencies the FAA, NASA, and the U.S. Coast Guard) is undertaking environmental impact studies for launch pads for SpaceX’s heavy-lift Starship rocket according to a a recent public release from them. They are also eliciting public comments, with four meetings scheduled for March 2024.

Contents

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• Information Website Published 16 FEB 2024
• Starship At a Glance
• Starship’s Propellants: Are They Toxic?
• What About Noise? (Coming Soon)
• What About The Starship Tower at LC-39A?
• Proposed Launch Pads Overview
  • Option 1: SLC-37
  • Option 2: SLC-50
  • Option 3: No Construction
  • Projected Flight Paths (new March 7, 2024)
  • Why Not Stay In Texas?
• Potential Economic Impact For The Space Coast?
• Local Public Hearings Scheduled
• Online Public Hearing
• Next Steps

NOTE: This Environmental Impact Statement is for Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and is not the EIS for the proposed usage of SLC-39A. For more information on that, click here: Notice of Environmental Impact Statement for Starship Launches From KSC’s LC-39A Filed.

Information Website Published 16 FEB 2024

The DAF has placed a new website online for information regarding a new Environmental Impact Statement for Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at https://spaceforcestarshipeis.com/. On it, they say

“The need for the Action is to ensure DAF Assured Access to Space without compromising current launch capabilities and fulfill (in part) the U.S. Congress’s grant of authority to the Secretary of Defense, pursuant to 10 U.S.C. Section 2276(a), “Commercial space launch cooperation,” that the Secretary of Defense is permitted to take action to:”

• “Maximize the use of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) space transportation infrastructure by the private sector in the U.S.
• “Maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of the space transportation infrastructure of the DOD.
• “Reduce the cost of services provided by the DOD related to space transportation infrastructure at launch support facilities and space recovery support facilities.
• “Encourage commercial space activities by enabling investment by covered entities in the space transportation infrastructure of the DOD.
• “Foster cooperation between the DOD and covered entities.”

^{Department of the Air Force, Retrieved February 16, 2024}

Starship At a Glance

Currently under development near Brownville, Texas, Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. According to SpaceX, it will be fully reusable, and capable of lifting 150 tons of payload to orbit in a reusable configuration, and 250 tons when it is configured as a conventional expendable rocket.

Current Starship designs are 397 feet tall, and 29.5 feet in diameter, producing some 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

By comparison, the Saturn V rockets used for the Apollo Program were 362 feet tall, and produced 7.6 million pounds of thrust. By any measure, Starship is a huge rocket with immense power, and its launches and returns will be heard across the Space Coast.

Similar to how SpaceX Falcon 9 completes in many of its launches today, the Starship booster would return to land at its launch site when its task for the mission has been completed. Unlike Falcon 9, which lands at a landing area close by, Starship would return to its pad, where it would be grappled by “chopsticks” as it completed its final approach.

Starship is planned to be a fully reusable vehicle, meaning that its second stage (often simply called “the ship” in SpaceX parlance) would reenter and return to land at its launch pad using the same chopsticks as the booster.

Starship is still somewhat early in its development, with two test launches so far, and a third on the plate for the next few weeks. Along with SLS, it is a vehicle integral to Project Artemis, this time in the role of being the Human Landing System. HLS is where astronauts will land, live and work on the lunar surface, with the forward plan being for extended stays.

Starship’s Propellants: Are They Toxic?

Unlike other rockets in the past that use highly toxic propellants, Starship relies on commonly found materials. The two propellants the power Starship’s Raptor engines are liquid oxygen and liquid methane. Methane is also known as “natural gas” and is used in many homes as stoves, heating systems and even some pool heaters here locally.

Methane combustion produces carbon dioxide and water as its byproducts. Starship utilizes a highly pure form of methane and oxygen, meaning that it does not have many other byproducts in its exhaust.

By comparison, rockets that use RP-1 as their fuel (Falcon 9, Saturn V, Atlas-V and many others) have carbon dioxide, water vapor, soot, sulfur containing compounds and small amounts of nitrogen oxide. All things considered, methane is a far cleaner fuel than RP-1.

Starship does not rely on solid rocket boosters (SLS, Atlas-V, Vulcan, Space Shuttle) SRBs typically emit aluminum oxide, soot, carbon dioxide, hydrogen chlorides, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen and other trace gases.

What About The Starship Tower at LC-39A?

SpaceX began construction of a Starship launch mount adjacent to its Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy launch pad at LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center a couple of years, but it appears that construction has been halted for the time being while the company perfects and finalizes their Starship design and along with it, the launch mount itself.

The proposed action by DAF for the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station does not address that launch mount or its future. There is a separate Environmental Impact Statement for that launch pad and Starship. That EIS is being conducted by the FAA as the lead agency, while for this one, the Department of the Air Force is the lead agency. Both EIS efforts have major stakeholders as part of the EIS team.

See also: NASA: No Activities Underway To Build LC-49 At KSC

Proposed Launch Pads At CCSFS from Department of the Air Force

The US Space Force is part of the Department of the Air Force, much like the US Marines are to the US Navy, as such DAF is the lead agency where Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is involved. For Starship DAF has proposed the following:

• SpaceX would modify and use SLC-37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS)
• SpaceX and CCSFS would build a new pad, SLC-50, between the current SLC-37 and SLC-40
• No action, where no Starship constructions or launch occurred from CCSFS

Option 1: SLC-37

Located nearly due east from NASA Parkway, SLC-37 currently is used by United Launch Alliance for Delta IV Heavy launches. That program has all but ended, with only one launch of the venerable heavy lifter remaining. That launch is scheduled for the March time frame when the company will loft the NROL-70 payload from the pad. After that, there are no Delta IV Heavy launches remaining.

SLC-37 is one of the older launch complexes at the Eastern Range — Construction on it started in 1959 and was used by NASA to support the Saturn I program starting in 1963. It originally had two launch pads, 37A and 37B, though 37A was never used. Saturn I launched from it from 1964-65, and the site was modified for Saturn IB launches, the most notable of which was Apollo 5. After that, in 1972, LC-37 was mothballed until 2001 when ULA began using it for Delta launches.

Given that SLC-37 has hosted launches for around sixty years, it presumably would have the least environmental impact of the two options the Space Force listed. Undoubtedly, that would have to studied and verified before SpaceX could begin construction at the facility.

Option 2: SLC-50

Slightly north of SLC-37 is another potential location for a new pad, according to the Space Force release.

This is currently an undeveloped area of the facility, and conversion and construction of a new launch pad would require environmental impact studies to be completed prior to any construction there.

Option 3: No Construction

This is what it sounds like, no Starship launch pad would be built at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Given that NASA has stated that no new LC-49 pad studies or activities are underway from the Kennedy Space Center side of the Eastern Range, that leaves either the LC-39A launch mount being completed for Starship or Starship not launching from the Eastern Range at all.

The latter option — no launch pad, no Starship — would be problematic for both SpaceX and for NASA, who is relying on Starship for the Artemis program and its lunar lander. It is possible that SpaceX and NASA could reach agreement to complete the Starship Launch Mount at LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, but that comes with its own issues.

Project Flight Paths

Many people may be wondering just where Starship would fly. The simple answer appears to be that it would be able to take the typical range of trajectories as other rockets that have flown or are flying from the Eastern Range today.

Notably, however, “polar” (North-South orbits) trajectories such as the ones SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has taken from to time from SLC-40 were not mentioned and we presume not in the current plans for Starship.

It is also worth noting that like Falcon 9, Starship and its boosters will return to the Cape to land, be refurbished and reused. That will bring sonic booms, just like the old Space Shuttle landings and today’s Falcon 9 RTLS missions such as Crew-8 on March 3, 2024.

From the DAF-supplied information packet:

Why Not Stay In Texas?

SpaceX’s launch facility in Texas at Boca Chica has a limited acceptable set of trajectories available to it — Florida is to the East, Texas and the Gulf states are to the north, and Cuba and other land masses are to the south.

For test launches, Starship plans to thread a launch path over the Gulf of Mexico and then to orbit. From the Eastern Range, a much wider set of trajectories are available due to the Atlantic Ocean being mostly devoid of people or property over a much wider area.

All things considered, Starship operations from the Eastern Range and the Cape is a preferable destination for SpaceX and for NASA.

Potential Economic Impact For The Space Coast?

Starship launches from the Eastern Range could easily bring billions of dollars in economic activity to the Space Coast region: SpaceX launch support jobs at the Cape, along with the associated jobs that are created to support the families of those workers, and of course tourism.

As a major Starship launch port, the Space Coast would cement itself now and in the future as the starting point for space launches of all types. The area has seen boom and bust in its history, and having the most dominant commercial space company in the world using Cape Canaveral Space Force station as its main operational site would all but ensure a prosperous future for the area.

Local Public Hearings Scheduled

The public has been invited to have their say about the proposed alternatives:

• March 5: 4-7 PM, Catherine Schweinsberg Rood Central Library, 308 Forrest Ave., Cocoa.
• March 6: 4-7 PM, Titusville Civic Center, 4220 S. Hopkins Ave., Titusville.
• March 7: 4-7 PM Radisson Resort at the Port, 8701 Astronaut Blvd., Cape Canaveral.

Online Public Hearing

There is also an online meeting for those that cannot attend in person:

• March 12: at spaceforcestarshipeis.com

Talk of Titusville strongly encourages interested members of the public to participate in these meetings. As the leading company for launch services in the world, much of the Space Coast’s economic future rests on this decision.

Next Steps

February 16, 2024

After making the announcement and holding public hearings in March, the EIS will then conduct studies and prepare a draft release of the EIS in Winter 2024. Being that there is only one winter month in December, that indicates that the draft EIS is due that month. That is not set in stone, however, so stay tuned for an announcement of specially when that date may be.