SpaceX workers are continuing to recover fragments of Tuesday’s doomed rocket from a nature reserve as conservationists blasted Elon Musk for the danger it posed to wildlife.
The Starship prototype rocket SN11 took off from the company’s base in the tiny hamlet of Boca Chica before crashing landing on its launch pad minutes later, raining debris into a neighbouring wildlife refuge.
Photos showed a beach opposite the facility littered with huge shards of metal and other remnants of the unmanned rocket.
The beach is part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Nature Wildlife Refuge, which is home to ocelots as well as many birds and insects, including an extremely rare beetle and a little-known ant species.
There are no reports of wildlife dying or being injured in the crash but conservationists criticised the launch site’s impact on the local environment.
SpaceX workers are continuing to recover fragments of Tuesday’s doomed rocket from a nature reserve as conservationists blasted Elon Musk for the danger it posed to wildlife
The Starship prototype rocket SN11 took off from the company’s Boca Chica facility before crashing landing on its launch pad minutes later, sending debris into a neighbouring wildlife refuge
Photos showed a beach opposite the facility littered with huge shards of metal and other remnants of the unmanned rocket
Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, a conservation group, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that Musk’s company’s ‘fail-first, fix-fast approach’ was dangerous.
Boca Chica Flea Beetle
The sand dunes of Boca Chica are the only known habitat of the Boca Chica Flea Beetle.
The small golden brown beetle has distinctive indents along its back, making it appear almost spotted.
Its larvae are known to be subterranean, feeding on the underground portions of their host plants.
The beetle is classes as a ‘Species of Greatest Conservation Need’ by the state of Texas.
‘The result of this strategy is a series of explosions that rain down debris on the habitat.
Most recently the explosion resulted in a large debris field on USFWS-managed state land,’ the post said.
One Twitter user said the area is also the only known home of the extremely rare Boca Chica flea beetle.
The tiny hamlet is also one of just three known habitats of a little-known ant species.
‘The area around SpaceX’s launchpad is some of the last of its kind in the world, much of it previously lost to agriculture,’ Steven Wang wrote.
‘Center of the continent & gateway to the tropics, it is one of the biologically richest areas in the US with a crazy mixmash of species found nowhere else.’
The Boca Chica flea beetle is small and golden brown in color.
It lives immediately west of the beach-side dunes east of Brownsville, Texas, according to bugguide.net.
Wang, a Cornell University undergrad, also shared an image of an ant that is so new to researchers that it is yet to be named.
The ‘undescribed Temnothorax species’ is native to the area of Boca Chica where the debris fell.
‘It looks like nothing else we know on this continent,’ Wang wrote alongside the image of the shiny brown ant.
Heavy machinery has been brought in to remove the wreckage, which will be examined to try and uncover the cause of the crash.
SN11 launched from the SpaceX testing facility in Boca Chica, Texas around 9:15am ET on Tuesday.
But minutes into its first high altitude test the livestream froze.
A SpaceX engineer John Insprucker, who hosted the livestream, said: ‘Starship 11 is not coming back, don’t wait for the landing.’
‘We do appear to have lost all the data from the vehicle.’
At the time of the announcement, SN11 was still soaring through the sky, but it came crashing down moments later.
The launch site is surrounded by three separate wildlife conservation areas which are home to a number of endangered species including the piping plover shorebird and the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle which lays its nests less than a quarter of a mile from the SpaceX facility
There are no reports of wildlife dying or being injured in the crash but many remain concerned about the launch site’s impact on the local environment
Musk released a statement on Twitter shortly after the incident saying ‘engine 2 had issues on ascent & didn’t reach operating chamber pressure during landing burn, but, in theory, it wasn’t needed.
Temnothorax
Twitter/Steven Wang
An ‘undescribed temnothorax’ is known to live in the area surrounding the SpaceX Boca Chica site.
The ant is shiny and brown in colour, with lighter legs and antanea.
Little is known about the insect, which has also been sighted in Goliad, Texas and Nicaragua.
Temnothorax is a genus of ants in the subfamily Myrmicinae. It contains more than 350 species.
‘Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today.’
NASASpaceFlight captured the event from cameras sitting near the launch pad.
They saw Starship SN11 ‘come down hard’ and debris ‘came flying past the camera near the pad.’
Sources at the site say the rocket appeared to have been rotating on its axis more than previous flights.
This could suggest SN11 may have struggled during the belly flop manoeuvre and exploded in mid-air.
One bystander found a piece of the charred rocket about five miles outside the Boca Chica facility.
‘Found this… tank insulation? #SN11 It came from the sky, is warm, and smells like fuel of some sort,’ a post shared to Twitter with a photo of the person holding part of the fallen rocket read.
SpaceX had planned to launch SN11 Monday, March 29, but was forced to pull the plug because a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector was not available to monitor the flight during the five-hour launch window.
The FAA released a statement after the launch on Tuesday, saying it will lead the investigation into what caused SN11 to explode.
The company’s Boca Chica site has long been a cause of concern for environmentalists.
They who say the tests carried out there are causing untold damage to endangered wildlife and the eco-sensitive Gulf of Mexico border region.
The site is surrounded by three separate wildlife conservation areas which are home to a number of endangered species.
These include the piping plover shorebird and the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle which lays its nests less than a quarter of a mile from the SpaceX facility.
SN11 launched from the SpaceX testing facility in Boca Chica, Texas around 9:15am ET on Tuesday, but minutes into its first high altitude test the livestream froze and a SpaceX engineer John Insprucker, who hosted the livestream, said: ‘Starship 11 is not coming back, don’t wait for the landing’
Sources at the site say the rocket appeared to have been rotating on its axis more than previous flights, suggesting SN11 may have struggled during the belly flop manoeuvre and exploded in mid-air
One bystander found a piece of the charred rocket about five miles outside the Boca Chica facility
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released a statement after the launch on Tuesday, saying it will lead the investigation into what caused SN11 to explode
Heavy machinery has been brought in to remove the wreckage, which will be examined to try and uncover the cause of the crash
The company looks set to expand its activities in the area, with founder Musk urging engineers to move there to work for SpaceX.
On Tuesday, Musk announced he will donate $20million to schools in Cameron County and $10million to help with the ‘downtown revitalisation’ the city of Brownsville, Texas and South Padre.
The city of Brownsville expressed its gratitude in a tweet: ‘On the border, by the sea and BEYOND! Grateful for your support in making #Brownsville a launching pad to Mars’
‘We look forward to continuing to work with @elonmusk and @SpaceX!’
Musk made the donation announcement alongside a tweet where he called for talent including engineers and technicians to move to the area to work for SpaceX.
The billionaire entrepreneur has had a rocky relationship with locals since he started buying up land in the area back in 2015.
Musk began buying up homes and land in the Boca Chica area in 2015 to expand his SpaceX empire and build a test site for the Starship program in a takeover that has repeatedly drawn the ire of the local community.
The SN11 is pictured on March 23 prior to taking off and crash landing during its launch on Tuesday
Musk has had a rocky relationship with Boca Chica locals since he started buying up land in the area back in 2015. Before SpaceX moved in, Boca Chica was a quiet hamlet of just 35 houses and was known to be something of an isolated paradise teeming with wildlife
Before SpaceX moved in, Boca Chica was a quiet hamlet of just 35 houses and a tiny chapel and was known to be something of an isolated paradise teeming with wildlife such as blue buntings and coyotes.
Now, SpaceX has bought up more than half of the homes and turned many of them into workshops, storage sites, and delivery centers.
Last June, residents told DailyMail.com the company was bullying them to leave their homes using threats and aggressive tactics while some likened the noise of rocket launches to living ‘in a war zone’.
SpaceX did not respond to a MailOnline request for comment at the time of this article’s publication.