Minimize to nav A day after SpaceX launched its Starship rocket for the sixth time, the company received good news from the Federal Aviation Administration regarding future launch operations from its Starbase facility in South Texas. In a draft version of what is known as an "Environmental Assessment," the FAA indicated that it will grant SpaceX permission to increase the number of Starship launches in South Texas to 25 per year from the current limit of five. Additionally, the company will likely be allowed to continue increasing the size and power of the Super Heavy booster stage and Starship upper stage. "FAA has concluded that the modification of SpaceX’s existing vehicle operator license for Starship/Super Heavy operations conforms to the prior environmental documentation, consistent with the data contained in the 2022 PEA, that there are no significant environmental changes, and all pertinent conditions and requirements of the prior approval have been met or will be met in the current action," the federal agency stated in its conclusion. The FAA regulates the launch of rockets from the United States and is responsible for the safety of people and property on the ground. What happens next The ongoing environmental review stems from SpaceX's desire to increase the scope of its operations from South Texas and is not yet finalized. Beginning today, the FAA will open a public comment period that will close on January 17. In addition, the FAA will hold five public meetings to solicit feedback from the local community and other stakeholders. The 158-page document makes for interesting reading, and it details the extent to which the FAA and other agencies reviewed air quality, climate, water, noise, cultural, wildlife, and other impacts. In all of these areas, the federal agency concluded that the mitigations SpaceX undertook as part of the 2022 environmental review process are sufficient to account for the increase in its Texas launch activities. And there will be significant impacts. For example, the number of large trucks that deliver water, liquid oxygen, methane, and other commodities will increase substantially. According to the FAA document, the vehicle presence will grow from an estimated 6,000 trucks a year to 23,771 trucks annually. This number could be reduced by running a water line along State Highway 4 to supply the launch site's water deluge system. SpaceX has made progress in some areas, the document notes. For example, in terms of road closures for testing and launch activities, SpaceX has reduced the duration of closures along State Highway 4 to Boca Chica Beach by 85 percent between the first and third flight of Starship. This has partly been accomplished by moving launch preparation activities to the "Massey's Test Site," located about four miles from the launch site. SpaceX is now expected to need less than 20 hours of access restrictions per launch campaign, including landings. SpaceX clearly got what it wanted If finalized, this environmental assessment will give SpaceX the regulatory greenlight to match its aspirations for launches in at least 2025, if not beyond. During recent public meetings, SpaceX's general manager of Starbase, Kathy Lueders, has said the company aims to launch Starship 25 times next year from Texas. The new regulations would permit this. Additionally, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said the company intends to move to a larger and more powerful version of the Starship and Super Heavy rocket about a year from now. This version, dubbed Starship 3, would double the thrust of the upper stage and increase the thrust of the booster stage from about 74 meganewtons to about 100 meganewtons. If that number seems a little abstract, another way to think about it is that Starship would have a thrust at liftoff three times as powerful as NASA's Saturn V rocket that launched humans to the Moon decades ago. The draft environmental assessment permits this as well. Finally, the document also grants SpaceX permission to land all 25 of the first and second stages back at the Starbase facility. SpaceX had to waive off an attempt to "catch" the Super Heavy first stage during Tuesday's flight, but the company has already demonstrated this capability. It is likely to become routine in 2025. Additionally, Musk said after Tuesday's launch that a Starship upper-stage catch attempt could come soon. "We will do one more ocean landing of the ship," Musk said on his social media site, X. "If that goes well, then SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower." For the time being, SpaceX will still need to receive a launch license from the FAA for individual flights and landings. Understandably, there will be questions about whether the new environmental review released on Wednesday was a result of the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States. Musk contributed heavily to the campaign in both time and money and has become a close confidant of Trump, raising concerns about conflicts of interest due to the large number of government contracts that SpaceX has won. Trump attended Tuesday's Starship launch. However, it seems unlikely that this document—which has been in the works for more than a year—was unduly influenced by Trump's election. It was prepared by an FAA still under the Biden administration. Rather, the tone of the environmental assessment signals that SpaceX was probably already on a path to complying with federal regulations. Looking ahead, if those regulations become looser during the Trump administration as anticipated, it is likely that the development and testing of the ambitious Starship vehicle will proceed at a high rate.