The California Coastal Commission on Thursday voted against a proposal by Elon Musk’s SpaceX to almost double its permitted annual Falcon 9 rocket launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base, raising the limit from 50 to 95.
As with a similar vote last October when the panel opposed an increase from 36 to 50 launches-the decision can be overridden by the U.S. government. The U.S. Department of the Air Force, which oversees the Space Force, maintains that the expansion is a federal matter exempt from state regulation.
A commission staff report noted that of the 51 rockets launched from Vandenberg last year, 46 were SpaceX Falcon 9s. While some flights support U.S. defence and NASA missions, most of the proposed increase would serve SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network. The company is also seeking to expand launch operations at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Air Force officials did not attend Thursday’s meeting in Calabasas, where the panel voted 11-0 against the plan. Neither SpaceX nor the Air Force provided immediate comment. SpaceX has sued the commission over its earlier objections, alleging the agency targeted the company in retaliation for Musk’s political views.
The new plan calls for up to 95 Falcon 9 launches a year, five Falcon Heavy launches, and up to 24 landings of reusable boosters- double the current approval along with two new landing pads and more at-sea landings. Commission staff recommended rejection, citing a lack of detailed information, concerns over noise and wildlife disruption from increased sonic booms, and the impact of more frequent closures of nearby public beaches and campgrounds within launch hazard zones.
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More than 200 electric buses from China have arrived in Tashkent as part of Uzbekistan’s plan to modernise its public transport system and cut carbon emissions.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned Moscow on Wednesday that the United States and its allies would "impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression" if the war in Ukraine does not come to an end.
Kenya's veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, who was imprisoned multiple times while fighting one-party autocracy and ran five times unsuccessfully for president, died aged 80 on Wednesday in India.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
A tsunami threat was issued in Chile after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Drake Passage on Friday. The epicenter was located 135 miles south of Puerto Williams on the north coast of Navarino Island.
The war in Ukraine has reached a strategic impasse, and it seems that the conflict will not be solved by military means. This creates a path toward one of two alternatives: either a “frozen” phase that can last indefinitely or a quest for a durable political regulation.
SpaceX launched its 11th Starship from Texas on 13 October, landing in the Indian Ocean ahead of testing an upgraded version for future moon and Mars missions.
From Sunday, all non-EU citizens, including British visitors, will face new biometric checks when entering and exiting the European Union under its long-delayed Entry/Exit System (EES).
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne, and Omar Yaghi of the University of California.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their groundbreaking discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in electric circuits.
United States chipmaker AMD will supply artificial intelligence chips to OpenAI in a multi-year agreement that could generate tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue and give the ChatGPT maker the option to acquire up to 10% of the company.
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