SpaceX rocket launch in Boca Chica, Texas, ends in a blast. Wildlife folks aren’t happy

SpaceX’s Starship cleared its launchpad Thursday morning on its first test flight before exploding minutes later.

Elon Musk’s company was aiming to send the nearly 400-foot Starship rocket on a round-the-world trip from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. It carried no people or satellites.

The plan called for the booster to peel away from the spacecraft minutes after liftoff, but that didn’t happen. The rocket began to tumble and then exploded four minutes into the flight, plummeting into the gulf. After separating, the spacecraft was supposed to continue east and attempt to circle the world, before crashing into the Pacific near Hawaii.

SpaceX was selected by NASA to create a moon lander for human exploration.

The launchpad is near Brownsville, Texas, in the Boca Chica area where some folks at the Texas Parks and Wildlife perturbed because of its proximity to sensitive wildlife.

The launch will mark the first time a prototype booster, called Super Heavy, and a 165-foot tall spacecraft, known as Starship, will fly together, according to the website RocketLaunch.Live. Musk’s company is developing Starship to eventually carry people and cargo to the moon and Mars.

NASA’s Artemis Program is planned to send humans to the moon for the first time in over 50 years along with the first astronaut exploration of Mars. SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, was selected by NASA to create a moon lander for human exploration.

This event, if it gets off the ground, has been in the works for months, according to space.com. SpaceX may actually be in the home stretch in shooting their behemoth spacecraft into orbit.

Earlier this year, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk was bullish about the prospects of a launch: “We have a real shot at late February. March launch attempt appears highly likely.”

Where is Boca Chica?

Boca Chica is an unincorporated community off the Gulf of Mexico, near the U.S.-Mexico border, in Cameron County, Texas.

It was previously called Kennedy Shores, named after John F. Kennedy, by real estate John Caputa in the late 1960s. The name was later changed to Kopernik Shores in honor of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, according to the Texas State Historical Association. The population of Kopernik Shores was 26 in 2000.

When did SpaceX arrive in Boca Chica?

The SpaceX launch site has been in Boca Chica since 2014.

Is Boca Chica a wildlife habitat?

The Boca Chica loop is home to a diverse ecosystem with birding trails and the Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary nearby.

Rare, threatened and endangered species live in or near the Boca Chica area, including the aplomado falcon, piping plover, red knot, snowy plover and black rail, along with migrating birds in the fall and spring, according to Friends of the Wildlife Corridor.

Texas Parks and Wildlife also reports Boca Chica’s lomas — clay mounds covered with brush — are a favored habitat for ocelots. South Texas is the only region in the United States where ocelots can be found.

In a response to a tweet asking if he would adopt an ocelot, Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and CEO, said motion-activated cameras around the base have not captured footage of ocelots.

The endangered sea turtle species, Kemp’s Ridley Turtle, also nest near the area, about a quarter mile from the launch area, according to Friends of the Wildlife Corridor. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports the sea turtle species’ nesting happens chiefly in Tamaulipas, Mexico, south of Boca Chica, with smaller nesting sites in Texas off the west coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, a citizen-led nonprofit organization in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, said in a position statement that increased activities like rocket testing, launches, explosions, fires and water contamination will have increased negative impacts on wildlife and habitat. The organization has pushed for further studies on the effects of SpaceX launches.