CAUSE AND RESPONSE TO JUNE SPACEX EXPLOSION STILL UNCLEAR

This image provided by rocketfuture.org shows a SpaceX rocket booster going up in a fireball during a testing mishap June 18 near the city of Starbase. (rocketfuture.org)

By Brandon Lingle, Leila Darwiche

San Antonio Express-News

STARBASE — The late-night blast sent a fireball more than 2,000 feet into the South Texas sky and shook a miles-long swath of the Rio Grande Valley with the force of the military’s most powerful bombs.

The June 18 rocket-testing explosion triggered dozens of 911 calls, tied up first responders, sparked fires and hurled debris across the Rio Grande into Mexico.

It also laid bare a community’s concerns about minimal regulatory oversight of Elon Musk’s commercial space business in Starbase, the rural coastal enclave where SpaceX builds, tests and launches the world’s most powerful rocket.

Several weeks after the explosion, Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. was still trying to find out

which government agency — if any — would investigate and work to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. In a letter, he reached out to 10 federal and state offices to ask about their roles in probes into such events. None have stepped up in that regard, instead leaving investigations to SpaceX.

But while the chaos of that June night has subsided, many of the concerns it raised persist.

In the minutes after the 11:05 p.m. blast, more than 40 calls from panicked neighbors flooded Brownsville and Cameron County 911 dispatchers. Some reported the walls of their homes shaking after a “huge explosion.” Others described a “big fireball” and a “crazy orange glow” that lit up the night sky.

“Something is exploding,” one caller said. “It exploded four times around Starbase.”

Dispatchers scrambled to understand what was happening and told callers they were “trying to figure it out.”

On South Padre Island, about 10 miles away, police received reports of the ground and windows shaking and the “SpaceX tower exploding.” Another caller from the island said he saw a “huge explosion with a big fireball” that “lit up the sky like it was daylight.”

No injuries were reported in the blast that damaged the company’s Massey test site. It consumed 70 tons of liquid methane, 1,200 tons of liquid oxygen and an unknown amount of hydraulic fluid, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

It generated a blast equal to between 15 and 50 tons of dynamite. But, unlike a bomb that detonates faster than the speed of sound and produces shockwaves, Starship experienced a deflagration, meaning its fuels produced intense heat and pressure waves as it burned off at subsonic speeds.

The Massey test site is about 4 miles west of the main part of Starbase. Formerly the southernmost gun range in the nation, SpaceX took over the 6-acre stretch a few years ago to convert into a ground testing facility. It’s outside the footprint of the company town and partially surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped lake, a resaca of the Rio Grande.

‘Won’t keep you all safe’

Few officials were willing to discuss what transpired that night and since, and SpaceX has declined to comment. This story is based on dispatch recordings, letters, email, texts and other documents received through public records requests over the past six months.

Among the findings is that Treviño wasn’t the only local official voicing concerns.

Two days after the explosion, Brownsville City Manager Helen Ramirez sent an e-mail to SpaceX’s external affairs representative and the city administrator of Starbase about her city’s response to the blast and worries about the future.

She said fire departments like the one from Brownsville — the largest city in the Rio Grande Valley — aren’t equipped to handle such situations.

“The SpaceX explosion on June 18 stands as one of the most logistically demanding and tactically complex incidents in recent memory for Brownsville’s emergency services,” she wrote. “It tested the city’s capacity to manage a high-risk industrial emergency while preserving safety and operational continuity across the community.”

(Smoke is seen still rising from the Massey test site near Starbase on June 19, the day after a Starship booster being tested there exploded, hurling debris into the Rio Grande and across the border into Mexico. (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality)

It “was not a standard fire event,” she wrote, because it involved pressurized tanks of flammable gases, active flames on the site’s containment structures, potential for more explosions and a response perimeter managed by drones instead of direct reconnaissance by trained personnel.

Brownsville firefighters were held a mile from the area “due to the unprecedented danger of cascading explosions, any of which could have led to catastrophic loss of life or further property damage.”
She also expressed concerns in texts to Starbase City Administrator Kent Myers. He responded that the blast happened outside Starbase city limits but that SpaceX owns the property and would pay for Brownsville’s response.

“Kent the explosion was heard from homes in Brownsville. We sent 5 engines … 2 EMS units,” she wrote.

He thanked her, agreed and said he’s “been trying to get this issue as a high priority.”

Less than two weeks after the blast, several SpaceX employees filed documents with the Texas Secretary of State to form the Starbase Volunteer Fire Department to respond to calls within city limits — which doesn’t include the test site.

To read entire story, click on link: https://local.newsbreak.com/brownsville-tx/4460668420778-spacex-explosion-shook-south-texas-sparking-oversight-and-safety-concerns?s=dmg_local_email_bucket_3.web2_fromweb&emailId=Jj4bNka&uid=209603484