FAA warns SpaceX that the massive Starship launch tower in Texas is unapproved

July 19, 2021: -The Federal Aviation Administration is warning Elon Musk’s SpaceX in a letter two months before that the work on a launch tower of the company for future Starship rocket launches is yet unapproved and will include in the agency’s environmental review of the facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

“The company is building the tower at its own risk,” a spokesperson FAA spokesperson told CNBC, adding that the environmental review could recommend taking down the launch tower.

Last year, FAA started an environmental review of SpaceX’s Starship development facility, as the company of Musk said it planned to apply for licenses to launch the next-generation rocket prototypes from Boca Chica. However, the FAA completed an environmental assessment of the area in 2014. That review was specific to SpaceX’s much-smaller Falcon series of rockets.

SpaceX conducts many short test flights of Starship prototypes from the previous year. However, the company needs the FAA to complete the environmental review and issue a license for the next step in the rocket’s testing. Company leadership has set several goals for the Starship program, with President Gwynne Shotwell saying SpaceX is “shooting for July” to launch the first orbital spaceflight of its Starship rocket.

In May, the company revealed its plan for the flight, which would launch from the company’s facility in Texas and aiming to splash down off the coast of Hawaii.

Starship prototypes stand at about 160 feet high, or around the size of a 16-story building, and are built of stainless steel, representing the early version of the rocket that Musk unveiled in 2019. The rocket launches on a “Super Heavy” booster, which makes up the bottom half of the missile and stands nearly 230 feet tall. Together, Starship and Super Heavy will be around 400 feet tall when stacked for the launch.

SpaceX develops Starship to launch cargo and people on missions to the moon and Mars.

The letter from FAA on May 6 came in reply to SpaceX saying in an introductory note that the launch tower in Boca Chica should not be a part of the environmental review due to the company “only intends to use the integration tower for production, research, and development purposes and not for FAA-licensed or permitted launches.”

“However, the project description of SpaceX in the administrative draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment provided to the FAA on May 5, 2021, indicating otherwise,” FAA safety authorization division manager Daniel Murray wrote in response.

This month, Musk shared photos of work SpaceX had done on both a Super Heavy booster and the launch tower.