The idea is to launch rockets to carry big cargo loads around the world from the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
BY: MICHAEL DOYLE | 04/07/2025 01:42 PM EDT
GREENWIRE | A rocket's red glare could soon light up the nation's most unusual wildlife refuge way out in the far reaches of the Pacific Ocean, under a plan now being studied by the Air Force.
As early as this month, the Air Force expects to complete its environmental assessment of plans to build and operate two rocket landing pads at the remote Johnston Atoll. Hundreds of thousands of seabirds and migrating shorebirds inhabit the atoll or spend winters there.
The pads would accept up to 10 reentry vehicle landings per year over four consecutive years as part of the ambitious Rocket Cargo Vanguard program.
Elon Musk's SpaceX in 2022 entered into a contract to participate in the program, which will test the potential of reusable rockets to carry big cargo loads halfway around the world in 90 minutes or so.
Located 800 miles southwest of Hawaii, Johnston Atoll includes the Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and is within the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.
“This area has historically enabled decades of DoD operations in support of national defense and holds important national ecological and cultural values,” the Air Force noted in announcing the start of the environmental assessment.
An environmental assessment is less in depth than an environmental impact statement, and some wildlife researchers and advocates worry about the future of a refuge that is unlike any other in the Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wildlife Refuge System.
“While we are concerned that any disturbance — even small — on a remote atoll where a million sea birds nest and raise their young could cause harm, landing large rockets will have enormous impacts and at minimum deserves a full Environmental Impact Statement,” said Desirée Sorenson-Groves, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Refuge Association.
Neither the Air Force Research Laboratory, which is overseeing the cargo-carrying rocket test program, nor SpaceX responded to requests for comment.
The once guano-rich Johnston Atoll was added to the bird refuge system in 1926. It now consists of four islands, two of them human-made.
A 2012 assessment noted its special character.
“Johnston Atoll’s ecosystem now includes extensive coral reefs and tropical terrestrial habitats on its four islands,” it stated. “Hundreds of thousands of seabirds inhabit and raise their young on the atoll and hundreds of migrating shorebirds spend their winters there.”
The 2012 assessment added that “extensive coral reefs are home to myriad tropical fish and invertebrates.”
The coral reef encompasses roughly 32,000 acres, and the area is home to more than 300 species of fish, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. For a time, it was also home to a vexatious population of yellow crazy ants, which swarmed over ground-nesting seabirds and their chicks and poisoned them with formic acid. After a 10-year battle, the Fish and Wildlife Service eradicated the ants by 2021.
The atoll's location in the central Pacific has also attracted U.S. military activities. Missiles were launched from the atoll in the 1960s, and in the 1970s the U.S. Army began using 41 acres of Johnston Island for chemical weapons storage and disposal. The chemical weapons disposal system was disassembled by 2004, and by the next year all of the other military infrastructure was also gone.
The refuge is not open to the public, and entry is only allowed through a special permit when the activity is approved by the U.S. Air Force.
The new plan led by the Air Force Research Laboratory is studying the viability of using large commercial rockets to transport materiel around the globe within hours. The planners envision rockets carrying up to 100 tons that can be delivered “within tactical timelines” anywhere on the planet.
“Current military modes of transportation require days to weeks of planning and logistics to provide materiel to distant locations at the time and place of need,” the Air Force noted, adding that the cargo-carrying rockets could help “address rapid global mobility challenges” facing the U.S. military.
The new environmental assessment will examine the “potential effects on essential fish habitat, migratory birds, and other protected species,” according to the Air Force.
Under the Biden administration, EPA fined SpaceX $148,000 for allegedly polluting sensitive wetlands bordering the company's Texas launch site in multiple incidents from 2022 to 2024. In 2022, FWS issued a biological opinion finding that the SpaceX Boca Chica launch facility was “not likely to jeopardize” species including ocelots and sea turtles, but other studies have pinpointed wildlife losses associated with rocket launches.
In June 2024, for instance, monitors with the nonprofit Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program found following a SpaceX rocket launch that all nine examined shorebird nests near the launch pad were either missing eggs, had damaged eggs, or both.