FAA lifts ban on daytime rocket launches after government shutdown ends

Commercial launch companies (especially SpaceX) can breathe easy, now that restrictions on when they're allowed to lift off have been rescinded.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ended an order designed to help alleviate strain on air traffic control operators. The directive — which went into effect Nov. 10 and was a result of the recent government shutdown — relegated commercial launch traffic to nighttime hours in order to avoid airspace closures around spaceports in Florida, California and the Delmarva area.

Now that the record-long shutdown has ended and the U.S. government is open for business once again, the FAA has ended those restrictions.

The order officially ended on Monday (Nov. 17) at 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT), an FAA statement said, allowing normal operations at the National Airspace System (NAS) to resume.

“Today’s decision to rescind the order reflects the steady decline in staffing concerns across the NAS and allows us to return to normal operations,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in the statement.

The order primarly affected SpaceX, by far the most prolific American launch company. SpaceX has been lofting Starlink missions to expand its growing wireless internet megaconstellation in low Earth orbit every few days; it has already launched more than 100 Starlink missions this year.

SpaceX wasn't totally grounded while the order was in place, though. The company managed to launch four after-hours missions during the week-long restriction phase, including three Starlink missions and the Sentinel-6B ocean mapping satellite.

A few other launches were also affected, though not unduly. For example, NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission, which lifted off on the second-ever flight of Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket, got an exemption from the FAA to launch during daylight hours on Nov. 13.

In a post on X, Transportation Secretary and Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said, "The FAA has determined that normal flight operations can resume after multiple days of positive staffing with air traffic controllers in our towers. Now we can refocus our efforts on hiring and building the state-of-the-art air traffic control system the American people deserve."