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Comment by thinkcontext | Hacker News Reader

I have wondered if SpaceX has been interested in pursuing launching from the former Soyuz pad in French Guyana. They've saved Europe's bacon by picking up their stranded payloads, one would hope that would make them amenable.

All the infrastructure is there for Falcon. And the fact that it is so close to the equator means they should be able to do more rtls launches.

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Probably mostly legal rather than technical issues. Barging rockets down there would be an added expense over those of transiting to US based launch sites but if launches end up at a frequency that launch pad availability in the US becomes a bottleneck, doubt the additional cost would be much of an issue. And as you pointed out, for certain missions the added boost of an equatorial launch would be ideal.

Iirc Elon mentioned something about SpaceX being legally restricted from operating outside the US. Obviously there are national security implications, given how they're working on the most powerful rockets on the planet. My guess is it would unlikely be approved. Most of all they probably want the scientists and engineers in their own jurisdiction.

There is precedent. Rocket Lab is technically an American company yet launches out of New Zealand.

If SpaceX was selling a rocket to the EU or letting the Europeans operate the rocket a license might be difficult. But if it was only SpaceX personnel who had access to the rocket? I imagine a license would be likely. Not guaranteed, but likely.

A treaty was written specifically for the rocket labs situation, and only because they were a NZ company first who were moving HQ to the US

Yes. That precedent makes it more likely that SpaceX would receive similar disposition, IMO.

RocketLab had a better reason for needing the disposition, but now that the precedent exists it opens the door to others.

But Rocket Lab don't do any military launches right? I think this is why SpaceX requires all employees to be Americans also.

RocketLab has launched US military payloads from New Zealand, but those were "R&D" payloads.

They've since built a launch facility at Wallops, Virginia to be eligible for more classified military contracts.

Presumably SpaceX would continue to launch national security payloads from US soil.

And of course advanced US government payloads have launched from French Guyana, ie James Webb.

But that's NASA, their stuff is not classified at all.

I wonder why puerto rico is a nonstarter

I think it opens them up to a lot of political risk. Outside just the logistics of figuring out how to export the rockets, French Guyana is not the most stable place to launch rockets from... And from what I've seen at Elon I don't think he'd be any better at reducing tensions than the ESA

If SpaceX can’t due to legal reasons, I wonder if Rocketlab would.

That would compete with vega-c

Europe needs a soyuz-size replacement

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