On Thursday, SpaceX carried out the first combined launch of the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy first-stage booster. The spacecraft was deliberately blown up during the test flight after it began to lose altitude when multiple engines failed. The spacecraft climbed to an apogee of about 39 kilometers (24 miles) over the Gulf of Mexico, which is the highest point any Starship spacecraft has reached to-date in the program's history.
"Impacts from the launch include numerous large concrete chunks, stainless steel sheets, metal, and other objects hurled thousands of feet away along with a plume cloud of pulverized concrete that deposited material up to 6.5 miles northwest of the pad site," the agency said on Wednesday.
In addition, the launch caused a 3.5-acre fire south of the launch pad site on Boca Chica State Park land, but at this time, no dead birds or wildlife have been found on refuge-owned or managed lands, according to the agency.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service said that although no debris was found on refuge-owned lands, the agency did document approximately 385 acres of debris on SpaceX's facility and at Boca Chica State Park, which is leased by the federal agency and managed as a component of the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge.
Last week, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the company may be ready for a second flight test of the Starship and Super Heavy rocket system in one to two months. However, any future Starship launches will be on hold pending the Federal Aviation Administration's investigation into the mishap.
Musk said that three months ago, SpaceX started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount, but it was not ready in time for the first launch. Musk added that the Starship team thought, based on data from a static fire test, that the original base underneath the launchpad would make it through the first launch.
In early February, SpaceX conducted a static fire test of 31 of the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster at 50% thrust.