A pattern of protest
It's understandable that ULA and Blue Origin wouldn't want to halt work at their launch pads for several Starship launches every week. But this isn't the first time SpaceX's top two rivals in the US launch industry have tried to block Elon Musk's space company from establishing a new launch site.
In 2013, Blue Origin and SpaceX fought for rights to lease LC-39A from NASA after the retirement of the space shuttle. SpaceX won, signed a lease with NASA the next year, and began launching Falcon 9 rockets from the launch pad in 2017.
But not before a spat between SpaceX and Blue Origin about whether the launch pad should be available for exclusive use by a single company or available for multiple users. Blue Origin proposed making LC-39A open for all launch companies, while SpaceX initially proposed taking over the pad for its own purposes, although the company later signaled it would be open to sharing it with other users.
At the time, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was already operational, and Falcon Heavy was well into development. NASA selected SpaceX to develop the human-rated Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2014, and it began launching astronauts from LC-39A to the International Space Station in 2020. Blue Origin had not yet launched its orbital-class New Glenn rocket, and still hasn't, although it could finally fly before the end of this year.
During the squabble over LC-39A more than a decade ago, Musk presciently told Space News that if Blue Origin showed up with a crew spacecraft that could dock with the space station within five years, SpaceX would gladly accommodate them. "Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct," Musk said.
ULA backed Blue Origin's effort to block SpaceX from taking over LC-39A. Musk accused ULA of acting maliciously to prevent a competitor from expanding its launch capacity at the Florida spaceport.
In the end, Blue Origin decided to build its New Glenn launch pad on military property a few miles to the south of LC-39A at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Blue Origin again protested a decision that favored SpaceX in 2021, when Bezos' company objected to the award of a NASA contract to SpaceX for a crewed lunar lander for the agency's Artemis program. A government watchdog agency upheld NASA's decision, but NASA last year awarded Blue Origin a similar deal for a second human-rated Moon lander design.
At capacity
There were 72 orbital-class rockets that launched from Florida's Space Coast last year, up from 57 in 2022. This year, the spaceport is on pace for around 100 launches, and maybe more if the launch rate picks up over the next few months, as SpaceX hopes it will. By 2030, NASA projects 225 launches per year combined at Kennedy and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
There are physical limitations on growing launch capacity at Cape Canaveral. Last year, the military allocated three historic launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to small launch startup companies. NASA and the Space Force want to keep a buffer between different launch pads and between launch pads and public areas surrounding the spaceport.
Some companies, like Rocket Lab and Firefly Aerospace, have decided to base their rockets elsewhere. Rocket Lab cited the already-busy launch cadence at Cape Canaveral as one of the reasons it opted to build a launch site in Virginia in 2018. Last month, Firefly Aerospace announced it would place its first East Coast launch pad for its Alpha rocket in Virginia, too, rather than at Cape Canaveral as previously planned.
Combined, the military and NASA portions of the spaceport cover more than 150,000 acres of swamp, beaches, and forests on Florida's east coast. Most of the land is unsuitable for constructing new launch pads or hangars. "There’s not a lot of land that is open for development over what we have already done," said Burt Summerfield, associate director for management at the Kennedy Space Center, last year.
"Largely, at the Cape, we’re at capacity, pretty much," said Col. James Horne, deputy director for the Space Force's assured access to space directorate, in an interview with Ars last year. "There are a couple of additional pads that we haven’t allocated yet, but we’re working through that process now.”
In its letter to the FAA, Blue Origin advocated for "government investment in additional launch infrastructure" to make more launch pads available, which could reduce conflicts between Starship launch operations and those of other companies.
At the end of its filing with the FAA, ULA went a step further, suggesting that regulators consider standing in the way of any Starship launches from Florida's Space Coast. That's not likely to happen, but such a decision would run counter to NASA's interests in the Starship program, and perhaps those of the military, too.
"SpaceX has developed Starbase in Boca Chica (Texas) for the purpose of launching Starship, and it currently conducts all tests and launches from that location," ULA wrote. "The FAA must consider Boca Chica as another reasonable alternative to the proposed action."
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