Flight delays are common at all airports, but something is happening at Florida airports that is making the situation worse. The origin is in Cape Canaveral. The mythical place from which the Apollo 11 mission departed for the Moon is now the origin of a much more mundane problem, that of aerospace congestion.
Air traffic disruption.
To reach their destination, the rockets have to cross, by necessity, part of the airspace in the immediate vicinity of the cosmodromes from which they depart. For safety reasons, the authorities in charge of managing these spaces cut off traffic in the region for a period of time that this maneuver lasts and until they can make sure that the planes can travel safely through the area.
The rockets do not last long inside the airspace, but the traffic disruption can last for more than an hour, since the stoppage begins before the takeoff maneuver and between 30 and 50 minutes usually elapse between takeoff and reopening. The reason is that the rockets can leave debris in their wake that must fall for the planes to resume their routes in the vicinity. Only when controllers receive confirmation that the sky is clear of debris do they reopen the airspace.
This operation can take longer when the rocket has stages that perform reentry maneuvers to land and be reused. The dimensions of the closed airspace vary, occupying rectangular areas that far exceed 100 kilometers in length.
The true magnitude of the problem.
Air authorities usually receive notice of scheduled launches a couple of weeks in advance. It’s not much considering that flights are usually scheduled much further in advance, but it does give air traffic controllers some leeway to make preparations and divert some routes.
Still, problems arise. 2022 has seen a big increase in air traffic from airports like Jacksonville in Florida, but also an increase in delays, and some of it has to do with the NASA hub.
Waste of time and money.
It is a difficult context for airlines, severely affected first by the pandemic and then by the increase in fuel costs. Precisely fuel is a key factor, and it is that delays and diversions make flights have to consume more. An example of this can be found with the famous launch of the Tesla by SpaceX. The launch affected a whopping 563 flights, with 4,600 minutes lost to delays and 34,400 air miles diverted.
A study carried out precisely in Florida in 2018 estimated that by 2021 the losses will reach 200,000 dollars per flight in fuel alone, and would grow an additional 50% in the following decade. The price of jet fuel has grown substantially since 2018.
opposing forces.
Technological advances can help authorities reduce disruptions, through improvements in communication between the different agents involved or in the detection of rocket debris. The problem is that, to the extent that technology can shorten the period and area of airspace closure, an increase in space traffic can undo progress. Or make the situation worse.
The demand for space launches is growing remarkably. This does not only affect the present launch points such as Cape Canaveral, the Guiana Space Center, or Baikonur, since it is expected that, as this second wave of aerospace exploration consolidates, the number of spaceports will grow significantly. These new cosmodromes will predictably add disruptions to more and more airports.
Does this only affect the US?
The problem facing US air traffic controllers does not seem to affect the Spanish, but it does affect the French. The reason is in the place from which most of the missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) depart, French Guiana. The port is again in a convenient location, close to the equator to facilitate the take-off of ships; but with the exception that it is thousands of kilometers from the European continent.
The European space center is not close to large airports, with the capital’s Cayenne airport being the only relatively important airport nearby. In addition, the European cosmodrome in South America has not seen a severe increase in activity in recent years. ESA makes a rather positive assessment of the economic impact of the cosmodrome on French territory.
Something similar happens with the place where the Soyuz ships of the Russian Space Agency usually take off, Roscosmos, located in an isolated area of Kazakhstan, far from the equator, but in a place where it does not generate major disruptions.
A known issue.
The new era of space exploration is not without controversy. We have been dragging the first one for years and it also has to do with congestion and the debris left behind by space missions. Space debris is populating low Earth orbits and over time the risk of a collision between the debris we leave behind and the new missions we send out increases. And there are many missions, so much so that even astronomers who observe space from Earth have expressed concern.
The second problem also has to do with pollution, specifically with CO2 emissions. The waste that the missions expel is not only solid, but also gaseous. The tremendous energy required to send objects into space has a cost in climatic terms that can be added to that of airplanes and other means of transport.
Florida: tourism and rockets.
Florida, in addition to hosting NASA facilities, is one of the areas that receives the most tourists, which makes its airports important infrastructures. The reason Florida was chosen as the benchmark for launches has to do with its geography.
Due to the direction of Earth’s rotation, rockets are launched in an easterly direction. As it is convenient for the rocket to fly over the sea in its first steps, the east coast was the most suitable. The second geographical factor is that it is one of the closest points to the equator in order to also take advantage of the planetary rotation.
But Florida also stands out for its weather (for better and for worse). Its climate is warm and its skies are clear and it is the place that many American retirees choose for their retirement, the American Benidorm. It is also home to Disney World, possibly the most famous amusement park in the world.
Image | David Mark
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism