Safety Zones; Rocket Launches in the Gulf of America and South Bay, Boca Chica Beach, TX

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0332]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Safety Zones; Rocket Launches in the Gulf of America and South Bay, Boca Chica Beach, TX</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard proposes to establish two permanent safety zones to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment from potential hazards created by commercial spaceflight activities. The proposed permanent safety zones are located in navigable waters of South Bay, TX and in navigable waters of the Gulf of America. This proposed rulemaking would prohibit persons and vessels from being in the safety zones during scheduled launches, unless authorized by the Captain of the Port, Sector Corpus Christi (COTP) or a designated representative. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before June 16, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2025-0332 using the Federal Decision-Making Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> See the “Public Participation and Request for Comments” portion of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section for further instructions on submitting comments. This notice of proposed rulemaking with its plain-language, 100-word-or-less proposed rule summary will be available in this same docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions about this proposed rulemaking, call or email Lieutenant Timothy Cardenas, Sector Corpus Christi Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 361-939-5130, email <E T="03">Timothy.J.Cardenas@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">AOR Area of responsibility</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">BNM Broadcast Notice to Mariners</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">COTP Captain of the Port</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FAA Federal Aviation Administration</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">MSIB Marine Safety Information Bulletin</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NOE Notice of Enforcement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NM Nautical Mile</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corporation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TX Texas</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S. United States</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> The Coast Guard has long monitored space activities impacting the maritime domain and taken actions to ensure the safety of vessels, persons, and the marine environment during space launch operations. In conducting this activity, the Coast Guard engages with other government agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and private space operators, including Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX). This engagement is necessary to ensure the safety of launch operations and waterway users. During this engagement, SpaceX, a U.S. company, informed the Coast Guard of areas within U.S. navigable waters of the Coast Guard Eighth District's area of responsibility (AOR) in South Bay, TX and offshore of Boca Chica Beach, TX in the Gulf of America, that may become hazardous and be impacted by planned future launch activities. In response to recent SpaceX activities the Coast Guard has published eight temporary final rules in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (such as 87 FR 23441) for anticipated rocket launching operations within the Coast Guard District Eight AOR offshore of Boca Chica Beach, TX. Based on the dates the Coast Guard was informed of rocket launching operations and the immediate need to establish safety zones, the Coast Guard did not have sufficient time to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for those rules. The Coast Guard has determined that these activities will be ongoing, and regularly recurring, and therefore permanent safety zones are required. The purpose of this proposed rulemaking is to ensure the protection of vessels, persons, and the marine environment in navigable waters of the U.S. from the potential hazards created by rocket launch activities. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under the authority in 46 U.S.C. 70034. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is proposing to establish two permanent safety zones in navigable waters of the U.S. for the potential safety hazards associated with the launch of spacecraft over the waters of South Bay, TX and the Gulf of America. The proposed permanent safety zones are located within the Coast Guard District Eight AOR in South Bay, TX and offshore of Boca Chica Beach, TX in the Gulf of America. The proposed rule would prohibit persons and vessels from being in the safety zone during limited times around scheduled rocket launches, unless authorized by the Captain of the Port, Sector Corpus Christi (COTP) or a designated representative. The safety zones cover an area of the South Bay, TX approximately 4.5 square miles in size, and an area of the Gulf of America offshore of Boca Chica Beach, TX approximately 115 square miles in size. The approximate coordinates for the two safety zones are presented in the regulatory text at the end of this document. To the extent feasible, the COTP or a designated representative would inform the public of the activation of the two safety zones by a Notice of Enforcement (NOE) published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> at least 2 days before rocket launching activities. The NOE would identify the approximate date(s) and timeframes during which rocket launching activities would occur. To the extent possible, twenty-four hours before rocket launching activities, the COTP or designated representative would inform the public of the activated safety zones (subject to enforcement) via Broadcast Notice to Mariners on VHF-FM channel 16, and/or MSIB (as appropriate). The BNM and MSIB would include the geographic coordinates of the activated safety zones, a map identifying the location of the activated safety zones, and information related to potential hazards associated with rocket launching activities. When the safety zone is activated, the COTP or a designated representative would be able to restrict vessel movement including but not limited to transiting, anchoring, or mooring within the safety zone to protect vessels from hazards associated with rocket launching activities. Once rocket launching activities have concluded, the COTP or designated representative would issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners on VHF-FM channel 16 announcing the activated safety zones are no longer subject to enforcement. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this proposed rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on a number of these statutes and Executive orders. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 direct agencies to assess the costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. This NPRM has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, the NPRM has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the size, location, and duration of the safety zones. The safety zones cover an area of the South Bay, TX approximately 4.5 square miles in size, and an area of the Gulf of America, offshore Boca Chica Beach, TX approximately 115 square miles in size. This section will be subject to enforcement 4 to 8 hours each day, with rocket launching currently expected to be twice a month. The rule does not completely prohibit vessel traffic within the waterway, and it allows mariners to request permission to enter the zones. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, as amended, requires Federal agencies to consider the potential impact of regulations on small entities during rulemaking. The term “small entities” comprises small businesses, not-for-profit organizations that are independently owned and operated and are not dominant in their fields, and governmental jurisdictions with populations of less than 50,000. The Coast Guard certifies under 5 U.S.C. 605(b) that this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. While some owners or operators of vessels intending to transit the temporary safety zone may be small entities, for the reasons stated in section IV.A above, this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on any vessel owner or operator. If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this proposed rule would have a significant economic impact on it, please submit a comment (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) explaining why you think it qualifies and how and to what degree this rule would economically affect i ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━