Lawsuit seeks to revoke FAA license for Georgia spaceport

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Opponents of a proposed launchpad for commercial rockets on the Georgia coast are asking a court to throw out the project's government license, saying the Federal Aviation Administration failed to correctly assess the risks of firing rockets over homes and a barrier island popular with tourists.

Attorneys for the Southern Environmental Law Center filed suit in U.S. District Court seeking to revoke the launch site operator license the FAA granted in December to the planned Spaceport Camden. Officials in coastal Camden County have spent the past decade and more than $10 million seeking to build a spaceport for launching satellites into orbit.

The proposed flight path would send rockets over Little Cumberland Island, which has about 40 private homes, and neighboring Cumberland Island, a federally protected wilderness visited by about 60,000 tourists each year. Residents and the National Park Service have said they fear explosive misfires raining fiery debris could spark wildfires near homes and people.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of homeowners and conservation groups says the FAA allowed county officials to minimize potential safety risks by basing their license application on a hypothetical rocket “that does not exist” and is smaller than current commercial rockets. It says the FAA didn't follow its own policies that call for holding such “unproven” rockets to a higher standard.

“The FAA’s decision to license a site where rockets would launch over people, homes, and Cumberland Island National Seashore ... is contrary to the agency’s regulations for licensing launch sites and is unprecedented in the history of the United States’ commercial space program,” said the the lawsuit, filed May 19 in the District of Columbia.

The lawsuit also claims that a...