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Elon Musk’s Starship rocket has been grounded by US authorities amid claims that a plume of dust from the launch has spread for miles and covered local wildlife.
The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has halted future launches of the SpaceX rocket as it investigates the fallout from the failed mission, which is standard procedure for any US space mission that goes awry.
Environmental activists who monitored SpaceX’s launch at the company’s Boca Chica base on the U.S. border with Mexico say the rocket formed a cloud of dust that spread six miles above the launch site. launch, raining debris on the city of Port Isabel. Residents said the launch felt like an earthquake, reported the New York Times.
An environmentalist told CNBC that the force of the rocket launch had shattered windows in the city. Texas Public Radio reported that locals in Port Isabel photographed “ash” falling from the sky.
Dave Cortez, chapter director of environmental group Sierra Club, told CNBC, “The concrete exploded in the ocean and risked hitting the fuel storage tanks which are these silos adjacent to the launch pad.”
Conservationists have warned that Musk’s launches could harm protected local species, including birds such as plovers, ocelots and the endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, which nest on the beaches near Boca Chica.
A US Fish and Wildlife report last year found that SpaceX’s activities in Boca Chica had significantly reduced bird populations in nearby habitats.
Large pieces of wreckage from the exploded rocket were also found on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico in the hours following the launch.
Mr Musk’s Starship rocket and Superheavy booster are twice as powerful as NASA’s Saturn V launch vehicles, built to take humanity to the Moon in the 1960s.
The FAA grounded SpaceX’s rockets on Thursday, pending a standard investigation to verify that “any systems, processes or procedures related to the accident do not prejudice public safety.”
The agency has also initiated its environmental “anomaly response plan” and will coordinate with local Texas wildlife officials “prior to any activity that could impact sensitive wildlife habitat.”
On Facebook last Friday, the Port Isabel City Hall posted that “the Cameron County Division of Emergency Management confirmed that the dust that fell this morning in Port Isabel was sand and dirt near the SpaceX launch site which is been lifted into the air by the unlit lift force.”
SpaceX’s launch tore chunks of solid concrete off the base of Starship’s launch pad and left a crater in the ground underneath.
The rocket exploded four minutes after it entered a spin, causing the rocket to initiate a self-destruct sequence.
Mr Musk fans were seen scouring the area around Starbase for scraps of metal that had been thrown hundreds of meters from the launch site.
The metal fuel tanks surrounding the launch pad had visible dents on their structures afterward.
