SpaceX is suing the California Coastal Commission for not letting it launch more rockets

Final week, the California Coastal Fee rejected a plan for SpaceX to launch as much as 50 rockets this yr on the Vandenberg Area Power Base in Santa Barbara County. The corporate responded yesterday with a lawsuit, alleging that the state company’s denial was overreaching its authority and discriminating towards its CEO.

The Fee’s purpose is to guard California’s coasts and seashores, in addition to the animals dwelling in them. The company has management over non-public corporations’ requests to make use of the state shoreline, however it may’t deny actions by federal departments. The denied launch request was really made by the US Area Power on behalf of SpaceX, asking that the corporate be allowed to launch 50 of its Falcon 9 rockets, up from 36.

Whereas the commissioners did increase about SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s political screed and the spotty security data at his corporations throughout their overview of the launch request, the evaluation centered on the connection between SpaceX and Area Power. The Area Power case is that “as a result of it’s a buyer of — and reliant on — SpaceX’s launches and satellite tv for pc community, SpaceX launches are a federal company exercise,” the Fee said. “Nonetheless, this doesn’t align with how federal company actions are outlined within the Coastal Zone Administration Act’s rules or the way within the Fee has traditionally applied these rules.” The California Coastal Fee claimed that not less than 80 % of the SpaceX rockets include payloads for Musk’s Starlink firm fairly than payloads for presidency purchasers.

The SpaceX swimsuit filed with the Central District of California court docket is looking for an order to designate the launches as federal exercise, which might reduce the Fee’s oversight out of its future launch plans.