suing Musk

I am very happy to see this lawsuit "launched." We lived on South Padre Island (SPI) from 2016 until last year, and as the SpaceX launches increased, we were getting freaked out about how strong they getting. Our house, only around 6 miles from the launch pads on Boca Chica as the crow flies, shook like a leaf in a strong wind. 

It was bad enough to see the house shake and cracks start to develop in our inside walls, but when SpaceX started returning the rocket boosters to the launch pad at Boca, we had a new rude awakening: sonic booms. But not the kind of sonic booms you might have heard as a kid when maybe a military aircraft streaked across the sky. No, these booms seem 10x stronger. When one hits, you cannot help but cry out and your heart might skip a beat. I'll bet some form of PTSD is likely from multiple booms, and multiple booms is what Musk wants. 

Right now, Musk has permission to launch up to 25 times per year from Boca. Recently, they have not held up that cadence, thank goodness. But when they get ramped up, Musk wants to launch THREE times per day. That's three launches, three returning boosters to the launch site, and at least three intense sonic booms. Per day. 

I don't see how anyone would want to live on SPI under those conditions. We got out when we could. Home prices were still on the rise and we cashed out. The sense of relief is palpable, but I feel very bad for those people who are still on SPI and don't have much to fight Musk with. We see a long history of the very rich getting their way and doing basically whatever they want in this country. And Texas, mind you, is not California. The regulatory authorities here in Texas are almost non-existent, especially if you are politically connected, as the neo-Nazi Musk certainly is.

A view from Texas State Highway 48 of SpaceX's Starship Flight 8 launch as the Booster is caught at the launch pad Thursday, March, 6, 2025. (Miguel Roberts | The Brownsville Herald)

Nearly 60 Valley households sue SpaceX over damage to homes from launches

By

 Montserrat Pagan

 - 

May 1, 2026

More than 50 plaintiffs on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against SpaceX alleging that sonic booms from the company’s test launches at Boca Chica Beach are damaging their homes.

The lawsuit was filed by 58 households in Port Isabel, South Padre Island and Laguna Vista.

The petition says that between April 2023 and October 2025, “SpaceX completed eleven fully integrated Starship/Super Heavy test flights.”

“Additionally, between 2020 and May 2021, the company completed six non-full-stack test flights. Further, at various times the company has completed static Starship engine tests at the Starbase facility,” the lawsuit stated. “As a result of SpaceX’s Starship operations, Plaintiffs’ homes have been subjected to repeated intense and damaging acoustic events.”

The lawsuit says the Boca Chica Beach location was intended to be a commercial space port for existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.

“In 2018, however, SpaceX dedicated the site exclusively to the development and launch of its next-generation Starship vehicle. To accommodate this program, SpaceX acquired hundreds of acres of coastal land, transforming a quiet beach community into a sprawling industrial spaceport and manufacturing complex,” the petition said. “Starbase is now the exclusive testing, launching, and landing site for the largest rockets in human history.”

At the spaceport’s launch pads, there are massive integration and catch towers that are the tallest launch towers in the world, the petition said.

“SpaceX deliberately constructed this colossal, skyscraper-sized infrastructure mere miles from coastal residential communities,” the document stated.

LACK OF DATA

The petition details the “colossal” size of the launch site’s infrastructure, with the Starship spacecraft and its Super Heavy Booster standing as tall as a 30 story building when prepared for flight.

The Super Heavy Booster relies on 33 Raptor 2 engines to lift onto the launch mount, according to the document.

They burn liquid oxygen and methane propellants which “collectively generates 16.7 million pounds of thrust,” the lawsuit states. The engines’ power creates a “violent aeroacoustic phenomena.”

“By comparison, Starship generates nearly twice the thrust as NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and nearly ten times the thrust of SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 rocket,” the lawsuit continued.

“SpaceX has publicly acknowledged scientific and regulatory deficits,” the document stated, referring to the company’s use of oxygen and methane propellants.

The lawsuit cited a SpaceX document that notes a lack of “data to make refined, accurate clear zones” for blast and acoustic impacts.

For instance, the lawsuit referred to SpaceX’s inaugural Starship test flight in April 2023 that completely blew up the launch pad and carved a crater into the ground while generating a massive debris cloud of pulverized concrete and metal shrapnel reaching residential areas nearly seven miles away.

Following the test launch, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded the Starship program for months so the company could make corrective actions.

“SpaceX’s Starship operations are therefore experimental and iterative by nature. Each launch generates new acoustic data for SpaceX and its regulators,” the lawsuit says.

LIKE A GUNSHOT

As SpaceX continued testing at Boca Chica much to the delight of space flight enthusiasts who gather at Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island and on Highway 48 between the Island and Brownsville, it has also piqued the curiosity of researchers.

For instance, a team from Brigham Young University (BYU) monitored the acoustic energy of test flights by placing measuring devices at eight locations various distances from the rocket launch pad, including in homes of some residents who filed the lawsuit.

“And they concluded that, by comparison, ‘one Starship launch is equivalent to around 4-6 SLS (NASA’s Space Launch System) and at least 10 Falcon 9 launches,” the lawsuit said.

The sonic boom generated from Test Flight 5 generated a “greater risk of structural damage, such as glass breaking and falling bric-a-brac,” according to the lawsuit’s citation of the researcher’s notes.

One researcher was cited saying that the sonic boom sounded like a gunshot at close range.

The launches pose a serious problem to sensitive populations, said Victor Sparrow, director of the Graduate Acoustics Program at Penn State University, according to the lawsuit.

BYU researchers continued to study test flight sonic booms and published findings, though they had variation in results per test due to changes in the environment as well as the number and nearness of recording stations.

“While these independent acoustic scientists successfully recorded actionable acoustic data during Test Flights 5 and 6, SpaceX’s orbital test campaign spans far beyond two isolated events,” the lawsuit says.

“Test Flights 5, 7, and 8 inflicted even greater acoustic trauma on Plaintiff’s homes. Because these flights involved the return and catch of the Super Heavy booster at Starbase, they subjected the surrounding areas to severe triple exposure acoustic events,” the lawsuit stated.

As of Friday afternoon, SpaceX had not filed a response to the lawsuit and no initial hearing in the case had been scheduled, court records indicate.

Original.