The Federal Aviation Administration has barred companies launching or re-entering commercial spacecraft from nighttime and predawn flights nationwide, the latest restriction on the public airspace as officials overseeing large portions of the government face economic duress during a funding lapse. The emergency action also requires airlines at 40 busy hub airports to pare schedules by as much as 10 percent, a double-barreled response aimed at alleviating controller workload on the busiest days of the week.
Acting NASA administrator and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy cast the move as a safety-first decision amid growing operational strain. The order goes into effect at the beginning of next week and focuses launch activity between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. local time, when flights are at their lowest levels.
What the curfew changes for launches and reentries
The order confines FAA-licensed commercial launches and reentries to nighttime, although case-by-case waivers are possible if companies can show “good cause.” Orbital missions, suborbital flights and spacecraft reentries that have FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation oversight must move into an overnight window unless granted an exception.
And for each launch or reentry, there must be temporary airspace closures, hazard areas and reroutes that cause a domino effect in surrounding sectors for as long as an hour or more. By shifting these operations into the late-night lull of air traffic, the FAA is trying to lower controller workload when passenger and cargo flights are at their busiest during the day.
Why the FAA says the curfew is necessary right now
Controllers have been working for weeks without pay during the shutdown, and absences, partly linked to problems created by not being paid, have started to creep upward — leaving staffing levels at some critical facilities at minimum levels. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has warned again and again that chronic shortages, along with a training pipeline still years from recovering from previous upheavals, put the system under added pressure when disruptions pop up or reroutes occur en masse.
On a normal day, the National Airspace System processes an average of 45,000 to 50,000 flights; air traffic is heaviest from late morning until early evening, according to operations data from the FAA, which manages air traffic control.
Airspace shutdowns during those hours disrupt operations and require extensive reroutes and coordination between several en route and terminal facilities. Focusing rocket operations at night is an obvious way to minimize cascading delays.
The high pace of commercial launches this year adds to the difficulty. There’s a new era of U.S. orbital activity, as exciting new rideshare opportunities and spacecraft placements fill the schedule with missions that may need several attempts at opening windows. More launches mean more airspace closures, even if windows are brief and operations proceed exactly as planned.
Who is affected now across space and airline sectors
The curfew’s first mission is thought to be a SpaceX Falcon 9 that would ferry Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral, which already has an evening-to-early-morning window slated. One of those two, Blue Origin’s New Glenn mission to launch NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft toward Mars, is on track to fly before a protein delivery to the International Space Station next month; but a delay could land it in the curfew overnight window.
The order also extends to reentries, such as crewed and uncrewed spacecraft returning from orbit or suborbital flights. Companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Rocket Lab will update their schedules accordingly, and the FAA has indicated that it will consider waiver requests on time frames where mission profiles or safety require them.
Airlines, meanwhile, have been ordered to reduce their schedules up to 10 percent at dozens of the busiest airports and cut back takeoffs and landings to address bottlenecks. Carriers and groups representing pilots have long maintained that more-proactive flow-management actions can help avoid last-minute ground stops, which typically compound so-called knock-on delays throughout the system.
How unprecedented and far-reaching this curfew may be
Launch coordination with the FAA is standard, but a nationwide time-of-day constraint for commercial space operations is an unusual step. The system was hit by significant delays during the 2019 shutdown — a major New York airport saw a brief ground stop as staffing waned — but the pace of spaceflight was far slower then. The environment today, with a launch attempt every week and reentries up the wazoo, requires us to manage airspace more frequently and in more places.
Most Florida and California launch providers already prefer evening or overnight windows for reasons related to orbital mechanics and range availability, so there might be some silver lining to the operational pain they are about to experience. Yet, time-sensitive missions, interplanetary windows and recovery operations could receive even more juggling without the waivers.
What comes next as FAA reviews and adjusts curfew
The curfew and airline schedule reductions are temporary and will be reviewed as soon as funding is restored and staffing levels are stabilized, according to the FAA. The agency can ease restrictions sector by sector as conditions improve, and it has left the door open for targeted exemptions where safety and efficiency can be demonstrated.
For now, travelers should expect spotty delays and more crowded schedules, while space companies switch to evening operations and more coordination with the ranges. If it has some of the pressure taken off of it, the earliest regulation to dial back may well be the curfew itself — returning sanity to an unforgivably rigid launch cadence in a business that is defined by its flexibility.
