THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX vying for 2 Starship launch sites in Florida, sealing Starbase’s fate as R&D, production site.

On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration said it’s conducting an Environmental Impact Study of the effects of as many as 44 Starship launches per year from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. It follows the U.S. Space Force earlier this year starting such a study of the potential effects of Starship operations at sites on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

During an update last month at Starbase, SpaceX CEO Musk reiterated his vision for Starbase as a research, development, test and production site — with operational launches from Florida.

“I think what we should probably expect is that we do the kind of the development launches here” at Starbase, he said. “Test anything new here, build the rockets and then most of the operational launches would be from the Cape.”

And speaking of tests: Musk sees fourth flight of SpaceX’s Starship in 3-5 weeks.