The first of two Environmental Impact Statements around SpaceX plans for Starship launch sites on the Space Coast was released last week, and it lays out the company’s plans to fly as many as 76 times a year from Cape Canaveral Space Station.
The Department of the Air Force owns the property at Space Launch Complex 37 that was most recently used by United Launch Alliance, but was shut down after the final launch of ULA’s last Delta IV Heavy rocket in 2024.
The Air Force has been taking the lead for the EIS on the site while the Federal Aviation Administration has its own EIS in the works for a Starship launch site at neighboring Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39-A, where SpaceX plans to perform as many as 44 Starship launches a year.
The 120 combined potential launches would swell SpaceX’s already prodigious pace. With its existing Falcon rockets added to the total, the company could easily make more than 200 launches from the Space Coast in a single year.
While the former ULA site was always an option, SpaceX had also eyed a brand new launch complex at Canaveral known as SLC-50, but the just-released draft EIS took that off the board citing it as potentially more harmful environmentally and archeologically, since the proposed site is currently undeveloped green space.
“The development of SLC-50 is less ideal than the redevelopment of an existing SLC,” the report reads. “Additionally, leveraging existing infrastructure would increase efficiency and reduce environmental impacts.”
The final version of the EIS is expected to be released in fall. But first, a series of in-person meetings, as well as one virtual presentation, are slated during a comment period for the draft EIS that’s open from June 13-July 28.
The three public meetings will be on Tuesday, July 8, from 4-7 p.m. at the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum in Titusville, on Wednesday, July 9 from 4-7 p.m. at the Radisson Resort at the Port in Cape Canaveral, and on Thursday, July 10 from 4-7 p.m. at the Dr. Joe Lee Smith Recreation Center in Cocoa. The virtual hearing will be from July 15-28 at a link that will be posted at the dedicated website for the Cape Canaveral EIS at spaceforcestarshipeis.com.
The draft EIS outlines the potential effect of launches and landings of Starship, which is the most powerful rocket to have ever made it to space. For now, SpaceX has launched it only on suborbital test missions from its Texas site Starbase. The first two test launches of 2025 ended with the Starship’s upper stage disintegrating in a spectacle that could be seen from South Florida, Bahamas and the Caribbean. The most recent fared better, but still saw the Starship spin out of control on its path halfway across the world.
But already SpaceX is in the midst of a $1.8 billion infrastructure project on the Space Coast to build out a Starship factory and support what it hopes will be both the launch site at Cape Canaveral and one at KSC. SpaceX most recently declared it is aiming for its first Starship launch from the Space Coat before the end of the year, but that would be subject to the acceptance of the EIS and then approval to launch from the FAA.
For now, Starship is grounded until SpaceX submits the results of its investigation into the latest Starship mishap.
Within the Air Force EIS for the Canaveral site, it outlined SpaceX’s intentions not only to launch as many as 76 times, but potentially to have twice as many landings: 76 for the powerful Super Heavy booster that would return minutes after launch, and 76 for the returning upper stage, which depending on its mission could return within hours, or even potentially years after launch.
SpaceX would build out two launch pads and two landing pads among the new infrastructure.
Half of the launches would be at night, and some of the return landings could still take place offshore as happens with most of the booster landings for Falcon 9 launches using droneships stationed in the Atlantic.
While the Air Force is taking the lead, the EIS also includes input from the FAA, NASA, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service.
The EIS looks at not only environmental, but social, economic, historic and cultural impacts.
For each of 68 potential impacts, the draft EIS concluded that there would at worst be no impact or no significant impact.
“The only known potential significant cumulative effect is associated with noise,” the EIS reads. “Given the increased launch activity on CCSFS and KSC, community annoyance may increase in the surrounding areas.”
Sonic booms from returning boosters and upper stages would become more common, and potentially louder than those currently heard along the Space Coast from the smaller Falcon 9 boosters.
Some other impacts could be mitigated, especially involving endangered and threatened species that could be found at the site during construction.
“Southeastern beach mouse habitat permanently lost during construction would be mitigated by providing funding to offset the loss of habitat at an offsite location in accordance with an agreement with the USFWS,” the statement reads as an example.
There’s a special note saying if tricolored bats are found roosting at the site, they would be allowed to leave before demolition begins.
There are also mitigation plans for Florida scrub jays, eastern indigo snakes, gopher tortoises and bald eagles.
The report also noted the construction and operation of Starship launches from Canaveral would benefit the area economically.
And it stated the Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45 unit, which oversees launch operations at both KSC and Canaveral, would be relied on to ensure that SpaceX competitors would not be shoved to the side.
“SLD 45 would aim to reduce scheduling conflicts between launch providers and will develop mitigation strategies to reduce impacts from conflicts,” the report stated.
The goal of the EIS from the Air Force and Space Force point of view was to ensure SpaceX could launch its new rocket as part of the Department of Defense’s Assured Access to Space program.
“The (proposed launch site) would increase the space launch mission capability of the U.S. DOD, NASA, and other federal and commercial customers and enhance the resilience and capacity of the nation’s space launch infrastructure, while promoting a robust and competitive national space industry,” the report stated.
©2025 Orlando Sentinel. Visit orlandosentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
