SpaceX, on Thursday, tweeted about its ship24 being completing a 6-engine static fire test at the Boca Chica Launch Site.
SpaceX’s Boca Chica testing facility, in south texas, was caught on fire leading to the destruction of a 68 acre of bush at a protected reserve.
The crew of space X was conducting a static test of a raptor spaceship’s prototype when this accident took place. It is said that the burning debris was sighted nearby grass, a report by KURV.
Fire crews reached the spot and conducted operations to control the fire on the Gulf of Mexico and stop the flames from reaching the building on the starbase facility.
Before the fire could have been controlled it reached rapidly onto the neighboring Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area in the Rio Grande Village, which shelters nesting birds like white-winged doves, egrets, white-tailed deer, and alligators.
While talking to the KRGV, biologist Stephanie Bilodeau said that she found many dead crabs and a large run of destroyed vegetation. The biologist further adds that it is concerning and she thinks that SpaceX had some mitigation regarding this accident and keeps a check so that these fires can quickly turn into a large ones.
The area of accidents invites a large variety of local and migratory birds as said by the Texas Parks and Wildfire.
In June, the FAA did an environmental assessment 0f the company’s bid to use reusable rockets to launch from the site which sits a few kilometers from the border of Mexico.
The SpaceX starship uses the raptor engine which is a group of full-flow staged combustion cycle rocket engines that is also manufactured by SpaceX. The engine gets its power from Cryogenic Liquid Methane and Liquid Oxygen (Trolox) that were used in previously SpaceX’s merlin and kestrel rocket engines.
The raptor engine is said to have a better, as much as twice the thrust of SpaceX’s Merlin 1D engine that is seen to power Falcon and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles. Also see when Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, says the first orbital Starship flight could take place in March
