SpaceX’s first test launch of its giant Starship and Super Heavy rocket from Boca Chica, Texas, kicked up a cloud of dust that dropped sand and soil on the nearby city of Port Isabel.
The massive rocket cleared the launchpad Thursday morning but exploded just minutes into its flight, or as SpaceX said, “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”
The unmanned launch from SpaceX’s Starbase facility was eagerly anticipated. The largest rocket ever built, Starship is designed to play a key role in returning humans to the moon, as well as in future Mars exploration.
The local area is now weighing the impact of the dust cloud kicked up by the launch.
Related: SpaceX scrubs Starship test launch minutes before blastoff
“Cameron County Emergency Management Division has confirmed that the dust that fell this morning in Port Isabel was sand and soil from near the Space X launch site that was lofted into the air by the force of lift off,” wrote the city of Port Isabel, on its Facebook page Thursday.
The city subsequently posted that it received a report of property damage that is “possibly attributable to SpaceX.”
MarketWatch has contacted Port Isabel with a request for comment on this story.
On its website, Cameron County says that Boca Chica beach and state highway 4 are closed from 2 p.m. local time Thursday through 2 p.m. local time Friday during “anomaly cleanup efforts.”
Related: Elon Musk’s SpaceX pulls another $1.7 billion in funding
Cameron County directed MarketWatch to SpaceX for information on the launch and its impact. MarketWatch has reached out to the space company with a request for comment on this story.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk did not dwell on the exploded rocket in a series of tweets Thursday. “Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months,” he tweeted.
He subsequently tweeted an image of what he described as the “supersonic” Starship.
“Such a great day in so many ways,” he tweeted late Thursday.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Twitter, was also in the spotlight Thursday as many previously-verified Twitter users lost their blue check marks on the platform. Journalists, athletes and celebrities such as Beyoncé were among the users that lost their blue check marks, as was Pope Francis. However, the Pontiff’s @pontifex Twitter account had a grey check mark Friday, denoting its verification as a “government or multilateral organization account,” according to Twitter.
