Elon Musk's SpaceX Overcomes Lawsuit Challenging Launches Near Texas Wildlife Refuge

A U.S. district court judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservation groups that aimed to overturn a Federal Aviation Administration approval in 2022 of expanded rocket launch operations by Elon Musk's SpaceX beside a national wildlife refuge in South Texas.

The organizations had claimed that lighting, noise, construction, and access closures could harm the native wildlife in the Boca Chica area on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The region is home to animals such as ocelots, and is also a nesting site for the endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles and a shorebird named piping plover.

U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols found that, in most cases, the FAA followed the legal framework to take a ‘hard look’ at the environmental concerns before permitting the launches.

The ruling clears another hurdle for SpaceX, which is looking to ramp up testing of its 400-foot-tall Starship rocket. Musk outlined last week that the company is preparing a bigger version of the rocket, which would be fully reusable next year.

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump further provided a boost to SpaceX and its peers by issuing an executive order to “eliminate outdated, redundant, or overly restrictive” rules for launch and reentry vehicles.

Musk, the billionaire CEO of SpaceX, had previously criticized the Biden-era FAA for “regulatory overreach.” Unlike most of its risk-averse industry peers, SpaceX follows the "fail fast, learn faster" approach, prioritizing learning from its mistakes and quickly moving on to the next test.

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits about SpaceX peer Rocket Lab was in the ‘bullish’ territory at the time of writing.

The FAA had permitted SpaceX to raise the number of Starship launches in Texas from five per year to 25 earlier this year. The firm is also looking to boost the number of Falcon launches from the Vandenberg Space Force base in California from 50 per year to 95.

Also See: Why Did Rocket Lab Stock Fall After-Hours Today?

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.