FAA moves Starbase meetings online, extends comments on SpaceX's plan for up to 456 Starship launches a year

The Federal Aviation Administration has taken every public meeting on SpaceX's plan to fly Starship far more often from South Texas online, and has given the public an extra week to respond. In a notice in the Federal Register dated November 10, 2026, the agency said the five scoping meetings for its programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) on Starship-Super Heavy operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site at Starbase, Texas, will all be virtual, and that it will take comments until December 7. Its first notice, published on October 14, had asked for comments by November 30 and planned four in-person meetings in Brownsville and Port Isabel, with one online.

The new meeting schedule

Each session opens with a half-hour FAA presentation, after which attendees may speak for up to three minutes, the notice says, and the same material is presented every time. Registration runs through the FAA's project website. Written comments go to docket FAA-2026-12808 on the federal e-rulemaking portal or by post, and the agency warns that everything submitted, including names and contact details, may be made public. It says every comment will be given equal weight.

What SpaceX is asking for

Starship-Super Heavy is a two-stage rocket: Super Heavy is the booster and Starship the upper stage. According to the October notice, the FAA currently authorizes SpaceX to conduct up to 25 launches and 50 landings a year at Boca Chica, 25 of each stage. SpaceX now proposes to raise that cadence and to add places where Starship can land or be expended. The PEIS will evaluate a ceiling of 456 launches and 912 landings a year, reached in two phases.

In phase 1, launches and landings could happen on any day and at any hour. Phase 2, which the notice describes as a mature program that would be put in place within several years, would keep launches to Monday through Friday. For its analysis, the FAA assumes half of all launches and landings at night, between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Super Heavy would come back to the launch site, make a soft water landing in the Gulf, which the notice calls the Gulf of America, or be expended in flight. Starship would land at the site, in the Gulf or in the open ocean, or be expended in the open ocean. Launches would head out on bearings between 40 and 115 degrees from north, which by our reading is roughly northeast to east-southeast.

What the review will cover

The FAA lists 14 subject areas for the study, by our count, among them air quality, wildlife and plants, coastal resources, noise, historic and cultural sites, water and wetlands, and socioeconomic effects and risks to children. Alongside it, the agency is consulting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Endangered Species Act, and starting a historic-preservation review under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.

It will compare the proposal with a single alternative, taking no action. Other sites were ruled out because Boca Chica already has the infrastructure for launches, the notice says. Under that option SpaceX would keep the 25-launch cadence approved in 2025.

A wider round of Starship reviews

Starbase is not the FAA's only Starship review this year. The Federal Register shows that the agency published a final environmental impact statement and record of decision for Starship at Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in February 2026, and announced on September 29 that it would prepare a supplemental statement for Starship-Super Heavy operations at Space Launch Complex 37. A notice on September 4 announced a final assessment and finding of no significant impact for Starship reentry contingency operations in the Pacific Ocean.

The reviews are under way while the administration pushes for more launches. An executive order of August 13, 2025, set a policy of "substantially increasing commercial space launch cadence" by 2030, and directed the Secretary of Transportation to "eliminate or expedite" the department's environmental reviews for launch and reentry licenses and permits. The FAA has since proposed changes to its launch safety rules, which we reported on November 11.

What comes next

After comments close on December 7, the FAA plans to publish a draft PEIS for public review and comment "at a later date", without giving one. The notices set no date for a decision. Under the no-action option, the FAA would not modify SpaceX's license, and the current authorization remains 25 launches a year.