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Space
Space
Science
Robert Z. Pearlman

'Look what I found!' SpaceX urges finders to report debris from Starship test flight

Joe Tegtmeyer holds up a possible heat shield tile from the first test flight of SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicle on April 20, 2023. The fragment was found on South Padre Island Beach, about seven miles from where Starship launched.

Hours after the first test flight of SpaceX's Starship ended with the spacecraft and its Super Heavy booster tumbling until it was commanded to explode, possible debris from the colossal rocket began to wash up on the shores surrounding the company's Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

Local county officials were quick to order temporary road and beach closures to aid in "anomaly cleanup efforts," but given that the vehicle was well over the Gulf of Mexico and reached an altitude of approximately 25 miles (40 kilometers) before it broke apart on Thursday (April 20), the precautions only extended to a relatively small area of where fragments of the world's tallest and most powerful rocket could end up.

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