An aerial view of a prototype spacecraft stacked on a super-heavy booster at Starbase’s facility outside Brownsville, Texas.
SpaceX
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to join the Federal Aviation Administration as a co-defendant to fight a lawsuit brought by environmental groups after the first test flight of Starship, the world’s largest rocket, resulted in an in-flight explosion last month.
IN submitted application In court Friday, SpaceX asked federal judge Carl Nichols to allow the company to join the FAA as a lawsuit against environmental and heritage non-profit groups that sued the aviation regulator earlier this month.
Plaintiffs “don’t object” to the company’s intervention, according to the documents. Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biodiversity and chief counsel for plaintiffs, said it was “standard and expected for an applicant to intervene in a case where a permit is being challenged.”
FAA posing groups have argued that the agency must have conducted a more in-depth environmental study into the likely effects of SpaceX’s activities before allowing the company to launch the world’s largest Starship rocket from its Starbase facility, a spaceport on the Gulf Coast near Brownsville, Texas.
The groups also claimed that the “mitigations” the agency required from SpaceX weren’t enough to avoid “significant negative impacts” on endangered species, their habitats and tribes in an area that considers the land and wildlife sacred.
SpaceX’s filing on Friday outlines the potential consequences for the company if environmentalists win the lawsuit, noting the implications for its operations and funds – in addition to arguing that the “significant national interest” and potential scientific advantages of the spacecraft can be affected.
“If the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the FAA’s decision may very well be overturned and further licensing of the Starship/Super Heavy program may very well be significantly delayed, causing serious damage to SpaceX’s operations,” the company wrote.
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The lawsuit demands that the FAA conduct an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) – a protracted and thorough procedure that may likely sideline SpaceX’s Texas spacecraft work for years.
The corporate too wrote in the filing that “the FAA doesn’t adequately represent SpaceX’s interests” in the lawsuit since it is a government agency. It noted that the FAA “has a direct and substantial economic interest in the final result of this case that the government doesn’t share.”
The FAA, in an announcement to CNBC, said it “doesn’t comment on pending lawsuits.”
At stake for SpaceX
SpaceX’s chief financial officer, Bret Johnsen, filed an announcement with a request to further detail the potential damage to the company if it loses the lawsuit. In an announcement, Johnsen said that “SpaceX has invested over $3 billion in development” of the Starbase facility and the Starship system since July 2014.
Only this yr company expects to spend around $2 billion developing Starship, according to CEO Musk’s comments after its first full launch attempt last month.
Johnsen also highlighted plenty of contracts SpaceX is constructing for future Starship missions.
SpaceX currently has a significant contract with NASA price up to $4.2 billion to use the rocket to land astronauts on the moon. As well as, the company has signed deals with business clients – including three separate missions for wealthy individuals Jared Isaacman, Yusaku Maezawa and Dennis Tito – for Starship, which Johnsen says are “price a whole bunch of tens of millions of dollars presently.”
![Why Starship is essential to the future of SpaceX](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107013976-1644535900772-S20_Chopstick_Stack_Desktop.jpg?v=1647016871&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
Starship is also critical to the way forward for Starlink’s satellite Web business, which has over 1.5 million customers. Johnsen noted that “SpaceX has invested billions of dollars in Starlink to date.”
Musk had previously emphasized the interdependence of the two businesses, and Johnsen went on to say that SpaceX needed to fly the spacecraft to launch the second generation, or “V2” Starlink satellites.
“Without Starship … SpaceX is not going to only suffer financial losses due to the inability to launch v.2 satellites, but in addition a whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals … waiting for the Starlink constellation to be upgraded and able to serve them,” wrote Johnsen.
Finally, Johnsen noted that losing the lawsuit would cause the company to “significantly reduce” its investment in the Starbase facility, which might hurt its interests in addition to local employees and communities.
Fallout from the first launch
Debris litters the launch pad and damaged tanks (rear right) on April 22, 2023, after the SpaceX spacecraft launched on April 20 for a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
Patrick T Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
The corporate witnessed a dramatic and explosive first launch of a spacecraft achieved several milestones for an almost 400-meter rocket that flew for greater than three minutes. But it surely also lost multiple engines during launch, caused severe damage to ground infrastructure, and ultimately failed to reach space after the rocket began to fall and was deliberately destroyed in mid-air.
SpaceX is in the strategy of cleansing up damage to the launch site, which has carved a crater into the ground and smashed debris into the tower, nearby tanks and other ground equipment. The launch also created a plume of dust and sand, with particulate matter reported so far as six miles from the launch pad.
The test flight also set off a 3.5-acre forest fire.
Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist in the research department at the University of Central Florida, studies the substance of particulate samples. He believes “SpaceX dodged a bullet” during launch, telling CNBC that the amount of “concrete blast” could have destroyed the rocket on the launch pad.
“It might have been much worse than it was. I feel they made a mistake taking a risk and taking off [concrete] surface by trying to do it this fashion once. But that was like 70% success. They cleared the tower, tested their first stage, got quite a lot of good data, found an issue with the staging, and hopefully they’ll have the option to fix it and get a greater rating in the next test,” Metzger said.
Metzger didn’t assess the ecological impact of the debris from the launch pad and rocket explosion on the endangered species that live and migrate through the area. The US Fish and Wildlife Service regional office in Texas and independent researchers are amongst those examining the environmental impact of the spacecraft test flight and explosion.
The SpaceX movement also justified why the spacecraft is ultimately useful to scientific endeavors. The corporate wrote that the rocket’s unprecedented capabilities “will allow scientists to concentrate on previously unattainable science missions and seek the quickest, easiest method to carry missions from concept to completion.”
“For instance, with its high capability, Starship could economically put large telescopes and heavy science experiments into orbit, in addition to cargo, people, and even colonies on moons and other planets,” SpaceX wrote.
Read the company’s filing to be sued alongside the FAA: