An aerial view of Starship prototypes stacked on top of the Super Heavy booster at the company’s Starbase facility outside Brownsville, Texas.
SpaceX
Elon Musk’s SpaceX will join the Federal Aviation Administration as a co-defendant in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups after it made the first test flight of the world’s largest rocket, Starship. ), the rocket ended last month when it exploded mid-flight.
in a make a motion In court Friday, SpaceX asked federal judge Carl Nichols to allow the company to join the FAA as a defendant in an environmental and cultural heritage nonprofit that sued aviation regulators earlier this month.
According to the filing, the plaintiffs “did not object” to the company’s intervention. Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity and lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said, “It is standard and expected for applicants to intervene in situations where their permits are in question.”
Groups suing the FAA claim the agency should conduct a deeper environmental study of the possible impact of SpaceX’s activities before allowing the company to launch the world’s largest rocket, Starship, from its Starbase facility on the Gulf Coast. near Brownsville, Texas.
The groups also allege that the “mitigation measures” the agency has asked SpaceX to take are insufficient to avoid “significant adverse impacts” on endangered species, their habitats, and tribes in the area that hold their land and wildlife sacred.
A SpaceX document on Friday outlined potential consequences for the company if environmentalists win the lawsuit, noting the impact on its business and finances — and arguing that it would harm Starship’s “significant national interest” and possibly scientific interests.
“If the court rules in favor of plaintiffs, the FAA decision could be set aside and further permits for the Starship/Super Heavy program could be significantly delayed, causing serious harm to SpaceX’s business,” the company wrote.
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The lawsuit requires the FAA to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) — a lengthy and thorough process that could put SpaceX’s Starship work in Texas on hold for years.
SpaceX also “The FAA did not adequately represent SpaceX’s interests in the litigation” because it is a government agency, the motion reads. It noted that the FAA “has a direct and substantial financial interest in the outcome of this case, which the government will not share.”
In a statement to CNBC, the FAA said it “does not comment on ongoing litigation issues.”
SpaceX is at risk
SpaceX Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen filed a statement with the motion, further detailing the potential damages to the company if it loses the lawsuit. Since July 2014, “SpaceX has invested more than $3 billion in the development” of the Starbase facility and Starship system, Johansen wrote in the statement.
this year company only The company expects to spend about $2 billion on Starship development, according to Musk’s comments after its first full-stack launch attempt last month.
Johansen also highlighted the contract pipeline SpaceX is building for future Starship missions. SpaceX already has a major contract with NASA worth as much as $4.2 billion to send astronauts to the moon on rockets. In addition, SpaceX has commercial customer contracts — including three separate missions for billionaires Jared Isaacman, Yusaku Maezawa and Dennis Tito — and Starship is “currently worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” Johansen wrote.
Starship is also critical to the future of the company’s Starlink satellite internet business, which has more than 1.5 million customers. To date, “SpaceX has invested billions of dollars in Starlink,” Johansen noted. Musk has previously emphasized the interdependence of the two companies, and Johansen further reiterated that SpaceX needs Starship to fly to launch its second-generation, or “V2,” Starlink satellites.
“Without Starship…not only would SpaceX be financially hurt by not being able to launch v.2 satellites, but there are hundreds of thousands of people…waiting for the Starlink constellation to be upgraded and able to serve them,” Johansen wrote .
Finally, Johansen noted that losing the lawsuit would cause the company to “significantly reduce” its investment in its Starbase facility, which would harm its interests as well as local employees and communities.
The aftermath of the first launch
Debris scattered on the launch pad and damaged tank (R rear) after the SpaceX Starship took off from the Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on April 22, 2023 for a flight test on April 20.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
Dramatic and explosive first Starship launch sees company The nearly 400-foot-tall rocket achieved several milestones in just over three minutes of flight. But it also lost multiple engines during launch, wreaked havoc on ground infrastructure and ultimately failed to reach space after the rocket began to roll and was deliberately destroyed in mid-air.
SpaceX is cleaning up damage to the launch site, which dug a crater in the ground and smashed debris into the tower, nearby storage tanks and other ground equipment. In addition, the launch produced a large amount of dust and sand, and the particles were reported as far as 6 miles away from the launch pad.
The test flight also sparked a 3.5-acre forest fire.
Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist in the Department of Research at the University of Central Florida, is studying the material in the particulate matter samples. He believes SpaceX “dodged a bullet” on the launch, telling CNBC that the amount of “surrounding concrete” may have destroyed the rocket on the launch pad.
“It could have been worse than it is now. I think they made a mistake by taking the risk of launching from a (concrete) surface and trying to do it one time. But it was like a 70 percent success. They cleared the tower, tested their first Level 1, got a lot of good data, found a grading issue and hopefully can fix that and get better results on the next test,” Metzger said.
Metzger did not assess the ecological impact of launch pad debris and rocket explosions on endangered species that live in and migrate across the area. The Texas Fish and Wildlife Service regional office and other independent researchers are studying the environmental impact of Starship’s test flight and explosion.
SpaceX’s motion also illustrates why Starship is ultimately good for the cause of science. The rocket’s unprecedented capabilities “will allow scientists to focus on previously impossible scientific tasks and seek the fastest and easiest way to move a mission from concept to execution,” the company wrote.
“For example, with its enormous capacity, Starship can economically launch large telescopes and heavy science experiments into orbit, and transport cargo, people, and even colonies on moons and other planets,” SpaceX wrote.
Read the company’s filing establishing itself as a defendant along with the FAA: