Rocket Launches Restricted To Night Only
11/07/2025
Ricky Whitmore
Space Writer
Yesterday there was an announcement by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that sent the space community into a frenzy. For the foreseeable future rocket launches or reentries are not allowed to happen between the hours of 6AM and 10PM. This restriction will go into effect starting Monday November 10th, there is no official end time, the direct quote from the FAA stated, “until this order is cancelled”.
There was some initial buzz on social media, with various people claiming various reasons why this could happen, but the likely reason was always the US Federal Government shut down. In the roughly 24 hours since the announcement it has become clear that the shutdown is the reason. Due to the government shutdown, caused by a disagreement in congress resulting in a failure to pass a budget to fund the government, many agencies have been shut down, or faced significant staffing reductions. The FAA is no exception to this rule, their staffing has been heavily slashed, as many workers are furloughed, and the people that are working are currently going without pay. This has impacted various parts of air travel, including TSA, which has caused long wait times at airports, but critically, it has caused major disruptions to air traffic control. The rocket launch restrictions come on the heels on an announcement by US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy that many airports across the country would be reducing the number of scheduled flights. The reason for both of these announcements is the lack of air traffic controllers working. Specifically on the rocket launch end of things, launches are being allowed only at night, while there are far fewer airline flights in the sky, thus reducing the need to reschedule, or re-route planes.
Image Credit: FAA.
As for what this could affect moving forward: There are currently 2 launches scheduled to launch from the US prior to the start of restrictions, Falcon 9 launching a Starlink Mission, and Blue Origin’s New Glenn launching NASA’s ESCAPADE missions. These 2 launches will be unaffected, as long as they are not postponed. As for missions following this, they will have to be scheduled during the restricted flight window or held off until the restrictions are lifted. This restriction is for launches from all flight facilities in the United States and applies to both orbital and suborbital missions. Obviously, this does not apply to entities outside the US so other country’s launches will still happen as planned.
There has been some debate regarding if certain missions are able to fly, regardless of the restriction, and the statement from the FAA is not entirely clear. The FAA statement says, “commercial space launches and reentries will only be permitted between 10PM and 6AM local time”. This has raised a question, can government payloads be launched, even if they are launched on commercial rockets outside of this window? Obviously, Falcon 9 cannot launch a Starlink mission at 3PM under these restrictions, but can it launch an NROL payload? Would an exception be made for a Vulcan rocket, launching a mission for the US Space Force? If ESCAPADE is delayed until Monday or Tuesday, would it be given clearance to launch outside of the 10PM to 6AM window? New Glenn is a commercial rocket obviously, but ESCAPADE is a NASA (government) payload? God forbid these restrictions persist to the next International Space Station launch, which have exactly precise launch windows, would an exception be made for that? I would personally like to think so, but the guidance is not clear, and by the time of this writing the FAA has not specified if exceptions would be made in any cases.
New Glenn on the pad prior to the ESCAPADE Mission. Photo Credit: Dave Limp @ Blue Origin.
The next question obviously becomes how long these restrictions will last, the FAA again, did not specify. The clear assumption is that the restrictions will be lifted whenever the government reopens and FAA is back to being fully staffed, but that begs the question, how long does that take? This article is being written on day 37 of the shutdown, already the longest in history, and signs of it coming to an end in the next few days are few. I am by no means a political commentator, but my thought (my hope) is that the overwhelming amount of people seeking to travel for Thanksgiving will cause so many delays, put so much pressure on the system that it will force one side or the other to give in. Which side will that be, what will be given? I don’t know, that’s a different story. In the meantime it appears we will be watching a lot of night time rocket launches in the near future, a fact that some are not tremendously upset about.
As always feel free to write to me at rickyew2112@gmail.com, or find me on X @Rickyew2112
Sic Itur Ad Astra
(Thus They Journey to the Stars)