The fire, however, seems to have been one of the launch’s more limited environmental effects. FWS officials surveyed the blaze’s aftermath as part of a broader inspection of the area surrounding SpaceX’s Starbase facility that took place about 48 hours postflight, after the company restored access to the nearby Boca Chica Beach. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), burned about 3.5 acres of an adjacent wildlife preserve.

Smoke came from other sources, too-chiefly a launch-sparked fire that, according to a statement from the U.S. I had never seen something that voluminous.” “The amount of dust and smoke that came up from the launchpad was wild. “At first, I didn’t realize it was an anomaly of the launchpad-I thought it was just the nature of this rocket,” says Philip Metzger, a physicist at the University of Central Florida, who used to work on launchpad technology at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Observers were stunned by the sheer size of the dust cloud raised by the launch.

The unexpected site damage-plus a new lawsuit regarding the permitting process that allowed it to occur-seem likely to, at minimum, delay future sorties by the massive vehicle.

Yet as the smoke cleared and the fallout from the launch became apparent, the implications-for Starship itself and SpaceX’s southern Texas Starbase launch site-grew muddier. This triggered Starship’s autonomous flight termination system, which, after a longer-than-anticipated delay of about 40 seconds, broke the behemoth apart and splashed its debris into the ocean.ĭespite the technical snafus, many aerospace experts considered the flight a success for all the data it delivered to SpaceX engineers pursuing the company’s “iterative design” process to rapidly improve subsequent hardware. The rocket soared aloft for a few minutes before several premature engine shutdowns and the failed separation of the first-stage booster sent it tumbling out of control. Mounted atop its massive, 33-engine Super Heavy booster, Starship cleared the pad with such force that it left behind little more than a smoldering crater and far-reaching showers of pulverized debris. Starship exceeded that goal in more ways than one. But the bar was much lower for this test flight, which sought to send Starship on a near loop of Earth: SpaceX officials stated simply clearing the launchpad would be a success. Expectations for Starship are sky-high because SpaceX intends the system’s unprecedented power and planned routine reusability to revolutionize spaceflight itself while also landing NASA astronauts on the moon as early as 2025. Then again, the April 20 test flight of SpaceX’s gigantic Starship-the largest vehicle ever flown-was no typical rocket launch. Destroyed launchpads and wreckage strewn far and wide across surrounding wetlands, however, are most definitely not.

Billowing flames and clouds of smoke are typical for rocket launches.

A southerners reckoning