---
type: source
title: "FAA Approves 44 Starship Launches + 88 Landings Per Year from LC-39A Kennedy Space Center"
author: "NASASpaceFlight / SpaceNews / FAA"
url: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/01/faa-advances-approval-44-starship-launches-39a/
date: 2026-01-30
domain: space-development
secondary_domains: []
format: thread
status: unprocessed
priority: high
tags: [SpaceX, Starship, FAA, LC-39A, KSC, Florida, launches-per-year, launch-cadence, regulatory, environmental-assessment]
intake_tier: research-task
---

## Content

**FAA Environmental Impact Decision (January 30, 2026):**

The FAA publicly released its final environmental impact statement and record of decision for SpaceX's proposal to conduct Starship launches and landings at LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center.

**Approval scope:**
- **44 Starship-Super Heavy launches/year** from LC-39A
- **88 landings/year** (44 Super Heavy booster + 44 Starship upper stage)
- Ocean landings permitted on droneships in Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans
- Environmental assessment covers 14 categories (air quality, wildlife, noise); most impacts "no impact, negligible, or less than significant"

**Timeline:**
- First Starship Florida launches possible late 2026
- SpaceX Cape team plans to focus LC-39A on Falcon Heavy launches first, then first Starship launches later in 2026
- Infrastructure completion still required before first launch

**Combined regulatory ceiling (both pads):**
- Starbase (Boca Chica, Texas): 25 launches/year approved May 2025
- LC-39A (Kennedy Space Center, Florida): 44 launches/year approved January 2026
- **Total FAA ceiling: ~69 Starship launches/year across both sites**

**Cadence economics implication:**
- At 10x reuse/vehicle and 69 launches/year ceiling: each vehicle flies 10+ times/year
- This produces $/kg well below $100 even without full vehicle lifecycle optimization
- The regulatory ceiling is now no longer a binding constraint — technical performance (reuse rate, Raptor 3 reliability, upper stage reentry) becomes the binding constraint

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the largest regulatory expansion for Starship since the original Starbase approval. Combined with Starbase's 25/year approval, SpaceX has a 69 launch/year regulatory ceiling — a massive increase from the ~5 launches/year that were previously permitted. The regulatory constraint on Starship cadence is now effectively removed; the binding constraints are purely technical (reuse validation, Raptor 3 in-flight performance, upper stage reentry). This is a phase shift in the Starship program's risk profile.

**What surprised me:** The scale of the approval — 44 launches + 88 landings/year at a single site is nearly 10x the previous Starbase ceiling. The FAA's "no significant impact" finding across 14 environmental categories suggests the regulatory environment for Starship has fundamentally shifted: the agency has accepted that high-cadence operations at this scale are environmentally manageable.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Expected to find specific infrastructure completion dates for LC-39A Starship operations. The approval doesn't commit SpaceX or FAA to a timeline — "late 2026" is contingent on construction progress.

**KB connections:**
- [[Starship achieving routine operations at sub-100 dollars per kg is the single largest enabling condition for the entire space industrial economy]] — the regulatory ceiling is now at 69 launches/year, enabling the cadence mathematics for sub-$100/kg
- [[Starship economics depend on cadence and reuse rate not vehicle cost because a 90M vehicle flown 100 times beats a 50M expendable by 17x]] — the regulatory capacity now exists for the cadence math; the constraint is technical execution
- [[SpaceX vertical integration across launch broadband and manufacturing creates compounding cost advantages that no competitor can replicate piecemeal]] — multi-site operations (Florida + Texas) extend the flywheel geographically

**Extraction hints:**
- **CLAIM CANDIDATE:** "FAA's approval of 44 Starship launches and 88 landings per year at LC-39A combined with 25 per year at Starbase creates a 69-launch annual regulatory ceiling that removes the regulatory constraint on Starship cadence and shifts the binding bottleneck to technical execution"
- This is a specific, falsifiable claim with a clear confidence level: likely (regulatory fact, but LC-39A launch date is contingent on infrastructure)
- **UPDATE needed on launch cost claims:** The regulatory ceiling expansion is a material fact that strengthens the cadence economics argument in Starship economics depend on cadence and reuse rate

**Context:** This approval was January 30, 2026 — before IFT-12 which hasn't flown yet. The Florida pad represents SpaceX's planned redundancy for Starship operations. Historical context: LC-39A is the same pad that launched Apollo 11 and the Space Shuttle; SpaceX already uses it for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Starship will co-locate with Falcon operations initially.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[Starship economics depend on cadence and reuse rate not vehicle cost because a 90M vehicle flown 100 times beats a 50M expendable by 17x]]
WHY ARCHIVED: The regulatory ceiling expansion to 69 launches/year is the most consequential non-technical development for Starship economics in 2026. The binding constraint has shifted from regulatory to technical — this is a phase transition in the program's risk profile.
EXTRACTION HINT: Extract two claims: (1) The combined 69-launch regulatory ceiling removing regulatory constraint, (2) The cadence math implication for $/kg economics. Both are likely-confidence given they're regulatory fact + standard math, not forward prediction.
