Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has threatened to sue Elon Musk’s SpaceX over falling particles from a rocket launch throughout the border in the USA.
SpaceX mentioned its efforts to get well particles from Mexico had been hindered by “trespassers”.
Right here is extra about what is occurring between Mexico and SpaceX.
What occurred?
A SpaceX “Starship” rocket, a part of Musk’s venture to ship people to house, exploded in a large fireball throughout a routine launch check in Texas on June 19.
Starship rockets are 120 metres (400ft) tall and made primarily from stainless-steel.
The rocket, referred to as the Starship 36, went by way of “catastrophic failure and exploded” on the Starbase launch facility at 04:00 GMT, in response to native Cameron County authorities.
The power is positioned at Starbase, previously referred to as Boca Chica Village, in Cameron County, Texas, near the US-Mexico border.
What does Mexico say about contamination?
On Wednesday this week, Sheinbaum advised her morning information convention that “there may be certainly contamination” which has been detected in Mexico within the aftermath of the SpaceX explosion.
She mentioned Mexican officers are conducting a overview of the environmental impact triggered to the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, just a little greater than 300km (190 miles) from Starbase.
Tamaulipas governor, Americo Villarreal Anaya, mentioned authorities have been inspecting “the internationally required distances are being revered with the intention to have these kinds of amenities, in order that there is no such thing as a danger to city centres”, in response to a report in The New York Instances.
“We’re reviewing all the pieces associated to the launching of rockets which can be very near our border,” mentioned Sheinbaum.
She added that Mexico is at present attempting to find out whether or not worldwide legal guidelines had been violated so it could possibly file “the mandatory lawsuits”.
What does SpaceX say?
In an X publish on Thursday, SpaceX claimed its makes an attempt to get well the fallen particles from Mexican territory had been hindered.
“Regardless of SpaceX’s makes an attempt to get well the anomaly associated particles, which is and stays the tangible property of SpaceX, these makes an attempt have been hindered by unauthorised events trespassing on personal property,” the X account wrote. It didn’t make clear who these events have been or the place they have been “trespassing”.
SpaceX additionally mentioned there have been “no hazards to the encircling space” from the rocket particles. “Earlier unbiased checks carried out on supplies inside Starship, together with toxicity analyses, affirm they pose no chemical, organic, or toxicological dangers.
“We’ve got requested native and federal help from the federal government of Mexico within the restoration,” it added.
As beforehand acknowledged, there aren’t any hazards to the encircling space. Earlier unbiased checks carried out on supplies inside Starship, together with toxicity analyses, affirm they pose no chemical, organic, or toxicological dangers.
And as is the case earlier than any check, a security… https://t.co/lJHGInE5vj
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 26, 2025
The place else have SpaceX rockets exploded?
In Might, the Federal Aviation Administration within the US granted SpaceX permission to extend the variety of Starships it launches annually from 5 to 25.
Later that month, a Starship prototype exploded over the Indian Ocean.
Earlier than that, two Starships broke into items after launching from Texas throughout check flights in January and March. In January, airways have been pressured to divert flights to keep away from falling particles.
Does house particles pose a hazard to the Earth?
In January this yr, a red-hot 500kg (1,100lb) metallic object fell onto a village in Kenya’s Makueni county, 115km (70 miles) southeast of Nairobi. The Kenyan house company mentioned the particles was a fraction of an area object.
On Monday, March 3, the Australian Area Company launched an advisory {that a} Russian rocket making re-entry into the Earth’s environment was anticipated to fall into worldwide waters off the southeast coast of Tasmania, inflicting a “sonic increase”. Nonetheless, the next day, the company mentioned it had “monitored an area particles re-entry over the southeast coast of Tasmania” however was “unaware of any reviews or sightings of the particles”.
The probability of house particles posing a hazard to folks, plane or the Earth, normally, may be very low. Nonetheless, latest research present that the quantity of house particles falling to the bottom is on the rise.
A examine by researchers on the College of British Columbia in Canada, revealed in Scientific Reviews in January 2025, discovered that uncontrolled re-entries of rocket our bodies or house particles into the Earth are on the rise and should pose an elevated danger of collision to plane.
One other examine, referred to as The Area Atmosphere Report, launched by the European Area Company (ESA) in March this yr, discovered that at the very least three “intact”, human-made objects fall again onto the Earth day-after-day. That is in addition to the a number of fragments of house particles that fall onto the Earth.
NASA has warned that there are hundreds of thousands of items of house particles low within the Earth’s orbit, however there aren’t any worldwide house legal guidelines about cleansing up this particles.
Presently, people on the bottom should not at a excessive danger of being hit and injured by house particles re-entering the Earth. The US nonprofit house company, Aerospace, estimates this danger to be lower than a one-in-one-trillion probability.