The change could mean CEO Elon Musk's early August target for the next launch will not be met as the Federal Aviation Administration reviews the revised flight plan.
The agency confirmed the commercial space company has requested modifications to its current Starship launch license but declined to say how long its review of the changes might take.
"As always, safety drives the timeline," an FAA spokesman said in an e-mail.
Neither the FAA nor SpaceX would describe the requested changes, but the agency said previously that if the company changes the craft's configuration or flight profile, a new license would be required.
Landing the 232-foot-tall booster at its launch tower would be a significant change that requires an updated safety evaluation before the license can be issued.
The tower has two giant arms near its top that are meant to grab and guide the booster as it descends toward the pad. Called "chopsticks," the arms are designed to gently lower Super Heavy onto the launch platform.
Unlike SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 booster, Super Heavy does not have retractable landing legs to stabilize it when it lands.
Renderings show how the system is supposed to work, but the technology is untested under real-world conditions.
The danger is an explosion at the tower that could cause more harm to the surrounding environment and damage or destroy the company's launch infrastructure. To mitigate the risk to its test launch capabilities, and to quicken the pace of future launches, SpaceX is constructing a second launch tower at its Starbase facility outside Brownsville.
The company has mastered landing its smaller Falcon 9 rockets on land and on drone ships at sea, but it has experienced failures and explosions along the way.
The Super Heavy booster is about the same height as the Falcon 9, but its diameter of nearly 30 feet is more than twice the smaller rocket's 12 feet. Super Heavy can carry 3,400 tons of fuel, significantly more than the Falcon 9. While it would have less fuel at landing, the craft still poses an explosion risk.
SpaceX has yet to reveal its plans for Starship's fifth flight. But shortly after Starship's fourth launch in June, which saw Super Heavy guided by its engines to softly touch down in the Gulf, Musk said the company would attempt to land the booster at its tower during the next flight.
During the June flight, the upper-stage Starship made it to its planned "soft landing" in the Indian Ocean for the first time.
As the regulatory process is playing out, SpaceX continues to prepare for the next launch with testing of the booster and upper-stage Starship that are next in the lineup to fly.
At the same time, the FAA is conducting public meetings in August for an environmental assessment of SpaceX's request to conduct up to 25 launches and landings of its Starship and Super Heavy in South Texas.
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