Last week, the California Coastal Commission rejected a plan for SpaceX to launch up to 50 rockets this year at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County. The company responded with a lawsuit yesterday, alleging that the state agency's denial exceeded its authority and discriminated against its CEO.
The Commission's goal is to protect California's coasts and beaches, as well as the animals that live there. The agency has control over requests from private companies to use the state coast, but cannot deny the activities of federal departments. The denied launch request was actually made by the US Space Force on behalf of SpaceX, asking that the company be allowed to launch 50 of its Falcon 9 rockets, up from 36.
Although the commissioners raised Over SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's political tirade and his companies' spotty safety record during the launch application review, the assessment focused on the relationship between SpaceX and Space Force. The Space Force's case is that “because it is a customer of and depends on SpaceX's launches and satellite network, SpaceX's launches are a federal agency activity,” the Commission said. fixed. “However, this does not align with how federal agency activities are defined in Coastal Zone Management Act regulations or with how the Commission has historically implemented those regulations.” The California Coastal Commission stated that at least 80 percent of SpaceX rockets contain payloads for Musk's Starlink company rather than payloads for government customers.
SpaceX's lawsuit filed in California's Central District court seeks an order to designate the launches as federal activity, which would eliminate the Commission's oversight of its future launch plans.
