A group of 80 South Texas plaintiffs are suing Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX, alleging its rocket testing caused “massive” sonic booms that damaged their houses repeatedly over a two-year period.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Southern District of Texas Court on Thursday, accusing the company of gross negligence and trespassing for loud blasts caused by 11 rocket tests from April 2023 to October 2025. Because some of SpaceX’s tests involve 400-foot, two-stage rockets, with both stages capable of landing, tests sometimes subjected residents’ homes to multiple prolonged periods of damaging noise, according to the suit.
During the Starship rocket’s initial launch in 2023, the force of the 33-engine booster destroyed the launch pad and flung debris three quarters of a mile away, which the lawsuit said “violently illustrated” the rocket’s destructive power.
The suit asks for a jury trial to seek damages, court costs and attorney fees from SpaceX. The plaintiffs own 53 homes in Laguna Vista, Port Isabel and South Padre Island, including several couples who shared homes.
The suit does not name what specific damages residents’ houses sustained due to the repeated sonic booms, but does explain that the loud blasts can cause damage to walls, windows and roofs of homes.
SpaceX and Benigno Martinez, the primary attorney for the plaintiffs, did not respond to immediate requests for comment. SpaceX has not yet responded to the lawsuit in court, and there are no hearings for the lawsuit currently scheduled.
SpaceX has increased its footprint in the South Texas region significantly as it has ramped up the frequency of its rocket launches and size of its operations. Company employees helped found Texas’ newest city, Starbase, in May 2025, and the company was in talks with the Trump administration to swap land for 775 acres of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in December.
In 2025, the Federal Aviation Administration authorized SpaceX to launch rockets up to 25 times per year, five times more than was allowed the year before. SpaceX’s launches cause a closure of an 8-mile long beach that lies adjacent to its launch pad. The company is currently facing a separate lawsuit over how often it can close the beach to launch its rockets. Oral arguments for the case were heard by the Texas Supreme Court in March.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
Photo: A SpaceX Super Heavy booster carrying the Starship spacecraft lifts off on its 11th test flight at the company’s launch pad in Starbase on Oct. 13, 2025. REUTERS/Steve Nesius
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Lawsuits
Texas
Aerospace
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