FAA warns Musk that he is building Super Heavy launch tower without permission (opens in new tab)

The issue is the tower is intended to be as high as 480ft. This is significant as that means it will end up being listed on charts and factored into any nearby instrument approach procedures.

All that said, this is a case where the FAA probably shouldn't be dragging their heels. It's trivial (single digit minutes) to figure out what this impacts and shouldn't be more than a day to come to a conclusion and generate a report on necessary approach, chart, and notam updates among others. Unfortunately this isn't how these agencies operate.

EDIT: The FAA reviewed the site multiple times, including earlier this year and found no impact on aviation navigation so unclear what they're potentially upset about. The area is rather sparse and the closest airport is a small untowered field 15 miles away.

Without knowing the height it is hard to tell. As an amateur radio operator I can put up a tower that is just under 200 feet tall without any real approval. Past that I would need FAA approval. It gets expensive, mostly because you need to keep the tower illuminated at night.

without any further context, this seems like the system working as intended: the FAA gives warning as a courtesy, spaceX says "thanks, we know, we're not using it for anything that would break the rules".

nobody has issued any orders or fines. any drama about the FAA being "angry" seems to be invented by the internet.

How much testing can you do with a launch tower without actually launching anything? Surely any launch would have to be cleared by the FAA right?

(I could totally be wrong and there's good reasons to build this, but my initial assumption is that the only real reason to build a launch tower would be to launch stuff with it)

>Seems like much ado about nothing unless SpaceX is outright lying

Well, the article does sort of accuse them of that, right after the part you quote:

> But the agency said description in documents "indicates otherwise."

> The FAA cited a SpaceX document that the towers would be used to integrate the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle. "Super Heavy would be mated to the launch mount, followed by Starship mated to Super Heavy," the FAA letter said quoting SpaceX's May 5 submission.

FAA already granted permission to SpaceX to build the tower several months ago.

https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external/searchAction.jsp?action...

Title is completely misleading.

I've been following Starship development closely, and I would be shocked if SpaceX was not planning to use this tower for the first orbital launch. Even as of the last few weeks, their aspirational goal was to launch this month, and the planned second tower would take months to build from this point - no evidence of progress on a second launch mount or tower foundation.

"Seems like much ado about nothing unless SpaceX is outright lying"

They'd never do that, would they?

Perhaps FCC?

There are rules about towers within some distance of an airport. Perhaps it runs afoul of those.

One major problem with bureaucracy is that it will create issues to justify itself.

I'm sure there's no real problem, it's just the government getting some PR and potentially some money via some kind of license/permit fee.

Musk and SpaceX have no desire to hurt anyone, that would impact their plans.

At this point this country would greatly benefit from less government involvement in just about everything. /libertarian

I heard years ago that titles are heavily A/B tested.

I.e. the title you see might not be the one the poster saw.

It's even editorialized to be false given that FAA granted permission to build the tower.

https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external/searchAction.jsp?action...

A little bigger than V-2 :) . Kinda similar shape, but size...

Govt in not preventing him here tho. SpaceX is an active partner of Nasa.

> This project appears to be on the critical path to making humanity a multi planetary species.

Inasmuch as "multi planetary" means multiple _self supporting_ planetary settlements (and otherwise, what's the point?), that seems to be an entirely unrealistic goal for the foreseeable future, so, by definition, there cannot really be a "critical path" to such a goal.

I've actually dealt with the FAA on a rocket launch. They're an INCREDIBLY bureaucratic agency. We were inside a continually restricted airspace volume (R-xxxx) as well as a TFR that was miles wide, but at the last minute we were restricted from flying a remotely controlled aircraft released at an apogee of around 2000ft AGL. We'd already received prior approval but then someone at the regional office decided they wanted to flex on the other agency we were working with. There were absolutely no safety concerns, real, procedural, or imagined. It was just someone settling a score with someone else.

Musk is already muzzled by a federal agency.

Going head to head with the agency controlling airspace on top of that is a pretty terrible idea.

Launches from international waters from a US firm will still need FAA approval

No, people living like to live on the coast is the reason.

LOL, pretty sure Musk is more scared of the Chinese government than the US government.

I've never seen Tesla/Musk apologize for anything, except when it comes to China. If Musk wants to be able to open his mouth with his opinions he'd be better to stay in the US.

"Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) came under increased pressure in China on Wednesday from regulators and state media after Monday's protest by a disgruntled customer at the Shanghai auto show went viral and forced the electric car maker into a rare apology."

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/china-...

And lets not forget when he was accused by the Chinese government on having his vehicles spy in China and how he had to grovel to not get shutdown.

Rockets are considered munitions under ITAR. Following through on that threat would result in serious jail time.

SpaceX biggest customer is the US government. You really think the US gov will ship satellites to China for launches?

Yeah, Elon's just dying to follow Jack Ma lead.

/s

FAA already granted permission to SpaceX to build the tower.

https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external/searchAction.jsp?action...

Would probably just declare himself his own country. Just needs his own currency (wait, didn't he do that already?), own military (it's handy to own a fleet of ICBMs with better guidance systems than anything the U.S. has), and own energy infrastructure.