Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has threatened to file a lawsuit against SpaceX over what the leader described as “contamination” following an explosion at SpaceX’s Starbase facility earlier this month.
On June 18, SpaceX was testing the upper stage of its Starship vehicle on a test stand at its Starbase site near Boca Chica Beach in Texas when Starship exploded in a dramatic fireball. SpaceX wrote on social media that there were no hazards to the surrounding communities following the explosion.
But Sheinbaum contests that claim. In a press conference held on Wednesday (June 25), the Mexican president said there is a “general review underway of the international laws that are being violated” due to the fact that “there is contamination” stemming from Starship’s explosion, according to Yucatan Magazine. The Guardian reports that Sheinbaum added that her government is looking to file “the necessary lawsuits” over the alleged contamination.
SpaceX’s Starbase testing and manufacturing facility is located near Boca Chica Beach. The area is at the very southeastern tip of Texas along the Rio Grande river, which divides the United States and Mexico. The Mexican city of Heroica Matamoros sits just across the border from Boca Chica and nearby Brownsville, Texas.
This isn’t the first time SpaceX has been threatened with environmental lawsuits, not to mention other legal cases. A coalition of environmental groups sued the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2023, claiming the agency did not conduct proper analyses of the damage Starship could cause to the surrounding areas, which are home to protected species of birds.
In 2024, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) reported that SpaceX had violated the Clean Water Act after releasing pollutants into nearby body of waters, according to CNBC. SpaceX refuted the claims, calling the reporting “factually inaccurate.”
Starship launches — and explosions — have left significant amounts of debris throughout Boca Chica Beach and surrounding areas in the past. When Starship launched on its debut flight on April 20, 2023, the rocket’s 33 first-stage Raptor engines sent chunks of cement and other debris flying for miles.
Local residents described the launch as “terrifying” and compared it to an earthquake. Pieces of debris rained down in every direction, even crushing a nearby car.
That flight ended in an equally dramatic fashion when SpaceX triggered its onboard flight termination system, causing the vehicle to explode some three minutes after liftoff. Fragments of the Starship vehicle were found along shores surrounding the area in the days following the flight.
Starship’s upper stage has exploded and/or crashed into the sea on eight of its nine of its test flights to date (on two launches, the company managed to return the vehicle’s Super Heavy booster to Starbase, where it was caught by the ‘chopstick’ arms on its launch tower).
On its fifth flight in November 2023, Starship managed to make a pinpoint splashdown in the Indian Ocean.