SpaceX wants to launch Starship from Florida. Photo / Getty Images
A request by Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch its massive Starship rocket from Cape Canaveral is drawing opposition from the company’s rivals, revealing a high-stakes tussle over the company’s growing dominance on Florida’s historic Space Coast.
Several competitors have told the United States Space Force that their work at nearby launchpads could be disrupted nearly every day of the year as they deal with safety precautions that would be associated with frequent flights of the new SpaceX rocket, according to industry officials and documents reviewed by the Washington Post.
Starship, the largest and loudest rocket ever built, is still in experimental testing and has flown exclusively thus far from SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
If it’s successful, its capacity to lift greater numbers of satellites with each launch could further cement the company’s status as the Government’s premier space contractor.
That is precisely what worries the host of other space companies developing rockets, from start-ups to legacy aerospace giants.
They are concerned that routinely launching Starship from the cape could make the Pentagon and Nasa even more dependent on Musk’s firm by crowding out their own ability to develop rockets there, industry officials said.
SpaceX has asked the Space Force to allow it to conduct as many as 76 launches per year from a Cape Canaveral launchpad called SLC-37. Combined with a nearby launchpad, at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre, SpaceX would be cleared to launch as many as 120 times per year.
Victoria Porto, a spokeswoman for the Department of the Air Force, which oversees the Space Force, said the launch complex planned for most of the Starship launches won’t be leased to SpaceX until environmental assessments are complete.
United Launch Alliance, the rocket joint venture of aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing, said allowing so many Starship launches would be “catastrophic” for its own ability to operate nearby.
ULA is using a launchpad that sits between two launch complexes being planned for Starship use. It could suffer “a complete shutdown of all neighbouring operations within the Blast Danger Area almost every working day of the year” if SpaceX is allowed to move forward with its plan, ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye said in an email.
“This would essentially give a monopolistic position to one launch provider over the other users on the range, limiting the competitive landscape that the Space Force has worked so hard to achieve,” Rye said.
A draft document published by the Space Force in June shows a hazardous launch area stretching for several kilometres along Florida’s coastline, covering 10 other launch complexes.
Some of those launchpads have recently been used by launch providers including ULA, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Stoke Space, Firefly Aerospace and Relativity Space. (Bezos owns the Washington Post.)
The Post reviewed written comments from United Launch Alliance and Relativity Space.
SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke, Firefly and Relativity did not respond to requests for comment.
Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built. At 122m-tall, it is twice the size of Falcon 9, SpaceX’s most commonly used reusable rocket. It is central to Musk’s hopes to eventually colonise Mars and to Nasa’s plans to return astronauts to the moon under its ambitious Artemis programme.
The Defence Department says it wants to use it to launch larger and more powerful satellites into orbit, or to rapidly deliver cargo from one continent to another on Earth.
SpaceX’s competitors are working to develop large rockets of their own that are still in early testing. Blue Origin’s 98m New Glenn has flown once, climbing to orbit in a January test flight. ULA’s Vulcan has flown three times, recently delivering a pair of military satellites into orbit.
By comparison, Starship has flown nine times out of South Texas with test flights that showed a mixed safety record.
The reusable rocket’s first test flight in 2023 damaged its South Texas launchpad and sent debris on to a nearby beach.
Its fifth test flight, in October, went more smoothly, with the massive booster powering down alongside its launch tower before being caught by two converging “chopstick” arms – a historic feat of engineering that signalled the system can work.
But in March, the Starship’s spacecraft broke apart eight minutes after it launched, raining debris down over the Caribbean and leading the Federal Aviation Administration to delay flights. The company scrubbed its 10th test flight, scheduled for Monday, to “allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems”.
SpaceX is waiting for both the Space Force and Federal Aviation Administration to finalise reviews on how Starship will affect the surrounding environment in Florida.
There are concerns that its sonic boom – 10 times as loud as those of its predecessors – could harm nearby wildlife, crack windows or rattle walls.
The Space Force estimated in a June report that it expects “no significant impact” from potential structural damage, but it noted that SpaceX will have to carry insurance to cover claims resulting from “noise-induced vibrations or sonic booms”.
Further disruption could come from rocket landings, launches that are cancelled because of weather or technical problems, and ground-based “static fire tests”.
“Put simply, SpaceX requests permission to shut down competitor operations nearly 400 times per year in order to add a fourth and fifth pad for a vehicle that has never successfully flown,” the rocket company Relativity Space told the Space Force in comments that were obtained by the Post.
There are also concerns that an explosive accident could harm people or valuable infrastructure at other launchpads, said David “DT” Thompson, a retired Space Force general who now works with the consulting firm Elara Nova.
Starship uses a different fuel mix than rockets that have historically taken off from Cape Canaveral, Thompson said, and the risks are less understood. Specifically, the safety implications of the large amounts of methane powering Starship’s engines have raised concerns, Thompson and other experts said.
“The biggest concern is what safety precautions have to be taken to protect people if, God forbid, an accident were to occur,” Thompson said.
“Depending on the size and nature of an explosion, there is a risk that an accident could destroy other [launch providers’] facilities and infrastructure.”
Porto, the Air Force spokeswoman, said the Space Force would “deconflict” operations to maximise the use of launch infrastructure there.
SpaceX already carries out roughly one launch every three days using its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a mix of military and spy satellites, small satellites for its own Starlink internet, and manned missions for Nasa.
With the help of billions in Government contract funding, it has become the US military’s launch provider of choice, and Nasa’s only reliable means for ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
The investment bank Morgan Stanley estimated the company earned US$14.2 billion in revenue in 2024, mostly from Starlink internet subscriptions.
American Enterprise Institute analyst Todd Harrison said launch capacity has been a “festering problem” at Cape Canaveral, brought about by the higher launch cadence SpaceX is pursuing for Starship.
The fight over SpaceX’s proposed scale-up shows that the US may need more places to launch from, he said. There are numerous other locations that can serve as US launch sites: Vandenberg Space Force Base in California; Wallops Island in Virginia; SpaceX’s Boca Chica site in Texas.
“The real long-term solution is to create more geographically separated spaceports along the East Coast and Caribbean,” Harrison said.
“It may be time for other companies to consider building their own spaceports, like SpaceX did in Texas, if they really think they need the extra capacity.”
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