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SpaceX seeks FAA approval to launch Starship 456 times yearly from Texas facility

Confirmed1 source · Oct 15, 2026

SpaceX has requested permission to increase Starship launch cadence from the current 25 per year to 456 annually from its Starbase site in South Texas, a request the FAA is beginning to review.

SpaceX seeks FAA approval to launch Starship 456 times yearly from Texas facility
Image via Space.com

What happened

SpaceX filed a request with the Federal Aviation Administration on October 14 to launch Starship from Starbase near Brownsville, Texas up to 456 times per year, compared to the currently authorized 25 launches annually. The proposal includes 912 landings per year, as both the Super Heavy booster and Ship upper stage are designed to land and be reused. The FAA announced intent to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and open a public scoping period. SpaceX's plan involves two phases: Phase 1 would permit up to 100 launches and 200 landings annually (potentially any day), while Phase 2 covers the full 456 launches and 912 landings, limited to Monday through Friday. Five public scoping meetings are scheduled for November, four in-person in the Starbase area and one virtual, with registration required for attendance.

Context

Starship has completed 14 test flights from Starbase, with the most recent on September 28 achieving orbit for the first time and deploying 26 Starlink satellites. SpaceX plans to deploy 100,000 satellites in its Starlink broadband constellation and a separate Starmind AI megaconstellation potentially containing a million satellites—both requiring numerous Starship launches. Elon Musk has stated SpaceX is targeting over 10,000 Starship liftoffs per year by 2030, though not all from Starbase; the company is developing three additional pads on Florida's Space Coast and plans a 12-pad complex in Louisiana. The massive increase in launch cadence proposed reflects SpaceX's strategy to leverage Starship's full reusability design as central to its long-term operational model.