If you’re among the hundreds of thousand who fly to Orlando, Tampa and other northern and central Florida airports, the FAA has good news for you. It’s done some reworking of just how much airspace needs to be closed when rockets are fired from Cape Canaveral.
About 100 rocket launches a year require closing off some of the airspace and corridors, and airlines have basically gotten the same treatment Amtrak gets from the freight railroads: Hang around and wait for us to finish.
FAA now says that a lot of the closure was unnecessary, and that if calculations use the intended and likely paths of the launch rather than closing space for all possible ways it could fly, In the past, up to 36 flights were rerouted for each launch, forcing planes to fly longer, burn more fuel and delay passengers.
The new procedures, FAA says, have allowed 10 of the last 12 launches to take place without affecting civilian air traffic, making a potential savings in fuel and relief from airspace congestion. The maps below show the closed area in red; in the new configuration it no longer crosses the main incoming flight path for Orlando and Tampa.
