Dave Cortez, chapter director of environmental group Sierra Club, told CNBC: “Concrete shot out into the ocean, and risked hitting the fuel storage tanks which are these silos adjacent to the launch pad.”
Environmentalists warned Mr Musk’s launches could harm local protected species, including birds such as the piping plover, ocelots and endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, which nest on the beaches near Boca Chica.
A US Fish and Wildlife report last year found that SpaceX’s activities at Boca Chica had significantly reduced bird populations in nearby habitats.
Large pieces of scrap from the exploded rocket were also found washed up on beaches across the Gulf of Mexico in the hours following the launch.
Mr Musk’s Starship rocket and Superheavy booster are twice as powerful as NASA’s Saturn V launch vehicles that were built to take mankind to the Moon in the 1960s.
The FAA grounded SpaceX’s rockets on Thursday, pending a standard investigation to check that “any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety”.
