SpaceX faces NASA hurdle for Starship backup launch pad as International Space Station at risk

tech.hindustantimes.com:

NASA wants Elon Musk's SpaceX to ensure its plan to launch its next-generation Starship rocket from Florida would not put at risk nearby launch infrastructure critical to the International Space Station, a senior space agency official told Reuters.

The new hurdle further complicates and could potentially delay the launch plan for the rocket, which faces an already protracted regulatory review of its primary launch site in Texas. Musk wants to show customers that Starship, which he sees as humanity's path to Mars, can successfully reach orbit, a long-delayed pivotal milestone in the rocket's development.

SpaceX's proposals to address NASA's concerns, which include a plan to be able to launch U.S. astronauts from a different launchpad in Florida, could take months to get agency approval.

SpaceX last year accelerated construction of an orbital Starship launchpad at its facilities in Cape Canaveral, Florida, as an alternative to the rocket's primary test launch and development site in Boca Chica, Texas, which has been subject to a lengthy regulatory review set to conclude next week.

But one of SpaceX's existing Florida facilities, called Launch Complex 39A, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on the coast of Cape Canaveral, is the only pad approved to launch the company's Crew Dragon capsule. NASA depends on that spacecraft to ferry its astronauts to the International Space Station.

NASA officials in recent months have told SpaceX that a Starship explosion at Launch Complex 39A could effectively cut off the space agency's sole means of launching U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station.

"We all recognize that if you had an early failure like we did on one of the early SpaceX flights, it would be pretty devastating to 39A,"