FAA Weighs SpaceX Plan for Up to 456 Starship Launches a Year

BOCA CHICA, Texas — The Federal Aviation Administration is opening the door to a dramatic expansion at Starbase, saying it will prepare a full environmental impact statement on SpaceX's request to fly as many as 456 Starship launches and 912 landings a year from its South Texas site. The current authorization allows 25 launches and 50 landings annually, so the proposal represents roughly an eighteenfold increase and sets up one of the most consequential regulatory reviews in the program's history.

From 25 to 456

The agency's notice of intent was set to publish in the Federal Register on Wednesday, October 15, formally starting the clock on a review that will weigh air quality, wildlife, coastal resources, water, noise and aviation. SpaceX has laid out the ramp in two phases. The first would lift the ceiling to 100 launches and 200 landings per year at any hour on any day. A second phase, which could arrive within several years, would raise the figure to 456 launches, still around the clock but limited to weekdays. The 912-landing number reflects the site's upper limit regardless of where a given mission begins, since both Super Heavy and Starship could return to the launch site or set down in the Gulf and open ocean. The filing builds on the orbital milestone we covered when Starship V3 flew its first orbital test flight.

A Public Process

The FAA has scheduled in-person scoping meetings for November 17 in Brownsville and November 19 in Port Isabel, with a virtual session on November 18. Written comments are due by November 30 through regulations.gov under docket FAA-2026-12808. A draft statement will be released for public comment at a later, unspecified date, and any increase beyond this proposal would require its own separate review. It is a deliberate, methodical path, and one SpaceX has walked before as it prepares for the next milestone flights, including the tower-catch attempt described in our report on Flight 15 and the return of Ship 40.

Building Toward a Daily Cadence

The scale of the request reflects how quickly Starship has matured. The vehicle has flown three times from Texas this year, including Flight 14 on September 28, the first orbital mission, which deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Bloomberg notes Starbase has never launched more than five times in a calendar year, making the leap toward hundreds all the more striking. The 25-launch cap dates to an FAA approval in May 2025, and in February the agency cleared up to 44 Starship launches a year from Launch Complex 39A in Florida.

The Long View

Elon Musk has said Starship could eventually fly more than once an hour within less than a decade, a vision that only works with the kind of regulatory headroom this review could unlock. On October 10 he said Flight 15 is hopefully four to six weeks out and will try to catch the ship with the launch tower, a flight that still falls under the existing limit. The environmental process will take time, but it is the gateway to the rapid, airline-style reuse SpaceX has promised, and the first formal step toward turning Starbase into the busiest spaceport on Earth. The details of the filing were first reported by Teslarati.