Starship: FAA opens the environmental review of a 456-launch/912-landing Starbase plan; SPCX −5%; Ships 42–44 join Ship 40 vertical in Mega Bay 2; Booster 23 cryo; Raptors cycling McGregor
From the Space digest for 2026-10-13
What happened: The regulatory lane now has an open docket. SpaceX's request to dramatically expand Starship operations at its South Texas launch complex — previously on the record as a filing targeting up to 456 Starship launches per year — is formally under review: a Federal Register notice has opened a full environmental review of the proposal for up to 456 Starship launches and 912 landings per year at the Boca Chica site (TeslaNorth, October 13), and regulators announced the review Tuesday, October 13, with SPCX stock dropping ~5% on the day (Stocktwits). The structure on record: the full cadence (roughly 1.7 launches and 3.5 landings per day) applies weekdays only as the plan's second phase, while Phase 1 would run 100 launches and 200 landings per year across all seven days — "very early days, assessments and evaluations have to take place — but it's the first time such a cadence has been written down officially" (Ryan Caton, NSF RT, 1:08 PM ET October 13). Earlier-in-day coverage of the filing request itself: MSN, Yahoo Finance (which cites the FAA filing for the 456-launches/912-landings figures), and Chron's South Texas piece on what "even more rocket launches" would mean for the area. The hardware pipeline stayed busy alongside it: Ship 40 — the Flight 13 recovery ship that returned by sea on October 7 after roughly 80 days and over 12,000 nautical miles — was lifted vertical inside Mega Bay 2 on October 12, hooked to the bay's bridge cranes, back where its journey started on July 23, and a SpaceX evening post (NSF RT, 5:59 PM ET October 13) frames it as "the first Starship to return to its launch site," now vertical alongside three other Starships — Ships 42, 43 and 44 — in a Megabay at Starbase, where it "will provide first-of-its-kind data on a flown Starship heatshield, Raptor engines." Booster 23 rolled from the Starbase production site to Massey's overnight into the morning of October 13, ahead of its initial round of cryogenic testing (roll RTs at 12:47 AM and 1:32 AM EDT, with a road delay en route), and McGregor cycled Raptors all day: Raptor 3 RVAC 106 returned to the test site (10:03 AM EDT October 13), and Raptor 3 engine 272 completed its testing and was seen heading back (NSF RT of Rhin0, 5:16 PM ET October 13 — a completion datapoint, versus prior coverage that had only tracked arrivals). At the Cape, SpaceX installed the roof section atop the Starship tower at Launch Complex 39A on the morning of October 12. Test-site commentary raises Booster 23 as a candidate to be the first booster to launch from LC-39A — speculation from observers, not a plan on the record. Unrelated but noted: NSF's feed carried reports of a power outage at Starbase overnight, with the Starfactory visibly dark.
What's genuinely new: The 456-per-year request was already on the record; the genuinely new layer is the FAA formally opening the review (Federal Register notice), the 912-landings figure, the weekdays-only full-rate constraint, the two-phase structure (100 launches/200 landings in Phase 1), and the ~5% SPCX drawdown on the announcement. Booster 23's Massey's roll, RVAC 106, and now Raptor 272's completed-test return are the hardware datapoints, Ship 42–44-in-MB2 is a new fleet-position datapoint with SpaceX's flown-heatshield-data framing, and the 39A tower roof installation continues the Cape pad-race record. This is a development of the existing thread "space — Starship cadence: Starbase + Cape pad race."
Watch: The environmental-review runway — comment/scoping phases and any timeline attached to the 456-launch/912-landing request; the Phase 1 (100/200) framing as the near-term ceiling; what Ship 40 is being prepped for and what data its flown heatshield yields; Booster 23's cryo results and whether it is ever shipped to Florida; the Flight 15 catch bracket (Nov 7–21) still standing from the memory record; the F16 39A debut vs the Dec 10 unofficial slot; whether the Starfactory outage was routine.
Links: MSN — 456/year filing · Yahoo Finance — FAA filing · Chron — South Texas · TeslaNorth — Federal Register PEIS · Stocktwits — SPCX −5% · NSF RT — Ryan Caton phasing · NSF RT — Ships 42–44 with Ship 40 · NSF RT — Ship 40 vertical · NSF RT — 39A tower roof · NSF RT — Raptors at McGregor · NSF RT — Boostel 23 roll · NSF RT — RVAC 106 · NSF RT — Raptor 272 return