The FAA asked the Fish and Wildlife Service for “re-initiation of Endangered Species Act consultation” due to the booster bidet. FWS has 135 days to give a final biological opinion.
The FAA has repeated multiple times: there is no launch licence yet for a second launch. Since the FAA asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to look into the matter, I think it’s highly unlikely that the FAA would issue the licence before FWS says it’s O.K.
I don’t know that there has been a definitive statement of the exact ending date. The Xeet summary provided included “The FWS has up to 135 days to submit the final biological opinion to the FAA (Started in August).” If it’s 4 months including weekends and holidays, it could be up to December 1 to December 31ish. But it could be handled before then, or if the FAA agrees, the deadline could be extended, or maybe it’s working days only. Also, the FAA would likely need time to digest it and issue its own ruling.
But there have been other reports that the FAA hopes to be done with it by October. So maybe they have inside knowledge.
Their report expected within 135 days. Hopefully they’ll be a bit faster. But they might also be late, who knows.
SpaceX won’t be able to launch before they finish their report. When it’s done, depends on the outcome on what SpaceX can do. They might need to mitigate some stuff before being allowed.
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