President-elect Trump watched the launch from Texas. It happened just before sunset on Tuesday.
SpaceX is one step closer to quintupling the number of annual launches from its Texas base as the Federal Aviation Administration continues to revise its environmental assessment.
Based on a previous environmental assessment by the FAA, SpaceX could conduct up to five Starship/Super Heavy launches per year from Boca Chica, Texas.
According to the FAA’s new draft assessment released Nov. 20, regulators are looking at the potential for up to 25 launches and up to 25 landings a year of superheavy boosters and Starship upper stages from the SpaceX Space Station. The impact is being assessed. Boca Chica is an annual event, SpaceNews.com reported.
The new assessment will begin a public comment period through January 17, 2025. The FAA will hold four in-person public meetings in Texas in early January and one virtual meeting on January 13th.
President Trump watches SpaceX Starship launch with Elon Musk in Texas
Starbase, Boca Chica, Texas, March 13, 2024. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)
The development comes a day after President-elect Trump visited the SpaceX base in South Texas to watch the sixth-ever Starship launch with Elon Musk.
SpaceX and NASA aim to use Starship, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, to transport astronauts to the moon and eventually Mars.
Bryson DeChambeau joins Trump at SPACEX launch: ‘I’ve never been more inspired’
President-elect Trump inspects the launch of the SpaceX Starship rocket’s sixth test flight in Brownsville, Texas, on November 19, 2024. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images/Getty Images)
SpaceX on November 19 abandoned attempts to acquire Starship’s booster with its mechanical arm and instead directed it to splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico due to communications problems.
President-elect Trump looks on as Elon Musk explains the launch process for the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in a control room in Brownsville, Texas, on November 19, 2024. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images/Getty Images)
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NASA submitted a request this week to have the seventh Starship launch from Boca Chica take place as early as January 11, 2025, WCCF Tech reported.
