In assuring the public that Thursday’s brief launch was a win, SpaceX officials have underscored that they were well aware Starship might explode in the air or even right on the launchpad, without ever referring to the fact that the rocket shrapnel would likely be landing in a complicated, delicate ecosystem teaming with wildlife, the land that surrounds the launch site.

Of course, the full story about where exactly SpaceX’s South Texas site is located is never something the company is eager to play up. In the lead up to Thursday morning’s brief, fiery launch of SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful rocket in the world, the company’s livestream commenters were talking about the history of the space flight, the weather, the crowd, and just about anything else as they filled time.

At one point SpaceX engineer Siva Bharadvaj even started to mention the wild, undeveloped land surrounding the launch pad’s particular spot on the South Texas Coast, mentioning the multitude of “nature” in the area before breaking off and abruptly changing the subject.

There are all kinds of reasons that he may have changed the subject. After all, we were in the final minutes leading up to the historic, if brief, launch of the largest rocket in the world, the 394-foot-tall structure that will (hopefully) one day tote astronauts to the moon and then on to Mars. It’s possible he just got distracted. It’s also entirely possible he realized that he was bringing up a very touchy subject—and that was before the enormous rocket turned blew up and the buckshot of debris scattered across the landscape.

Why? Well, SpaceX’s launch site, dubbed Starbase by founder and CEO Elon Musk, is plopped down on a lush, relatively untouched section of the South Texas Coast abutted by state and federally protected lands on almost every side. Starbase is located in the Boca Chica section of the Laguna Madre hyper saline lagoon system, a delicate ecosystem that is home to an array of vulnerable species.

Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles nest on Boca Chica shores each spring while the area also hosts more than 400 bird species from multiple flyways during each spring and fall migration, including the endangered Aplomado Falcon and the threatened Piping Plover, and Red Knot.

Admittedly, the location didn’t seem like a huge problem back in 2014 when the Federal Aviation Administration issued its Environmental Impact Statement finding SpaceX’s plans for the region “would have no significant impact on the environment” even considering the company’s tradition of “test, fly, fail, fix, repeat” and the rocket pieces that would likely be scattered across the landscape after each “unscheduled rapid disassembly.” The more modest plans for the site seemed like they could accommodate birders, turtle enthusiasts, nature lovers, and SpaceX.

But over time the plans for the site changed. After a 2016 Kennedy Space Center launch exploded on the launchpad, destroying both, Musk’s focus seems to have shifted to Boca Chica. Musk reportedly stated in a 2018 press conference that he’d actually selected this coastal spot only miles from the Mexican border because it was “a lot of land with nobody around, so if it blows up, it’s cool.”

It's unclear if Musk was aware at the time that his site was surrounded by state and federally protected lands, including sections of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, or that it was just a short distance from the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

By 2019 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had sent letters to the FAA about how SpaceX was encroaching federally managed lands near the site while another “unscheduled rapid disassembly” littered the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge with rocket pieces.

The FAA subsequently revisited its environmental assessment based on SpaceX’s plans to test the Falcon Heavy and then the Super Heavy and Starship itself on the site. Last summer the FAA concluded its environmental assessment noting in the 183-page document that SpaceX would be required to address more than 75 mitigation requirements before the agency would issue Starship’s launch license. SpaceX didn’t get the license until Sunday, April 16.

So how did that play out on Thursday?

So far, although we don’t know the exact damage the launch did in relation to the wildlife in the area, it’s clear that the launch explosion resulted in a plethora of debris, with dust coating surfaces in the nearby town of Port Isabel and chunks of rocket landing all over the area, guaranteeing that the surrounding lands are also now scattered with rocket parts.         

It’s also clear that these launches are going to continue—Musk has already said he expects SpaceX will be ready to try again “in a few months.”

Meanwhile, the FAA has revoked Starship’s launch license and it and other regulatory and environmental agencies are joining local officials in assessing how the explosion has impacted nearby natural areas.
Agency officials say that this is standard protocol for an “unplanned rapid disassembly,” and that they’re going to be investigating the explosion and subsequent fallout before a new license will be issued.

There’s a lot we don’t know and won’t know for a while yet regarding the environmental impact of this specific launch and explosion. But considering the FAA pegged the original launch license on SpaceX squaring away environmental concerns, let’s settle in and see how long it takes the agency to issue that license a second time. Maybe the FAA be ready for Starship to try again “in a few months,” but maybe not.