Here’s What a SpaceX Starship Rocket Launch Sounds Like, According to New, Detailed Data

On October 13th, SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and its reusable booster Super Heavy launched from Boca Chica, Texas. In a world first, Super Heavy returned to the launch tower after separating from Starship and was caught by a pair of chopstick-like arms in a daring maneuver.

That was Starship’s fifth test flight—and during the launch, researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU) were there to measure the event’s noise from start to finish. The results of their study were published in JASA Express Letters last week.

“It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard, for sure. You can feel the sound whipping over your body; it feels like it’s almost pushing you back sometimes,” study co-author Noah Pulsipher, a student in BYU’s Physics and Aerospace Student-Centered Acoustics Laboratory, says in a statement. “And then, all around me, car alarms are going off and dogs barking—things like that. It’s a powerful experience.”

The study presents the most comprehensive sonic data on Starship ever released to the public, per the New York Times’ Eric Lipton. The team recorded measurements at eight locations, all within 6 to 22 miles of the launch site, including a hotel roof and national wildlife refuges.

The BYU team is setting up their acoustic equipment at one of the NSF sites at Starbase. https://t.co/rd3NLg6Y4o pic.twitter.com/vYsPLDZpt4

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) November 16, 2024

Starship is currently the world’s most powerful rocket, and its sound levels show it. One launch of this behemoth produces as much noise as at least ten of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launches, per the statement. From just over six miles away, the noise was equivalent to a rock concert. At 12.4 miles, it was similar to a table saw or snow blower. Even at 18.6 to 21.7 miles away, it was still as loud as a vacuum cleaner.

But the liftoff, when all 33 of Super Heavy’s engines fired, wasn’t even the loudest moment—sound peaked about 6.5 minutes after launch, when the booster returned to its launch tower and caused a sonic boom. The peak level of noise, measured at roughly six miles away, was as loud as a gunshot at close range, per the New York Times.

The communities of South Padre Island and Port Isabel, which are around six miles from Starship’s launch site, are particularly impacted by the noise. A separate study conducted by Terracon Consultants analyzed the impact of sound waves on Port Isabel homes within five miles from Starship’s launch site from July to mid-October, per KRGV’s Christian von Preysing.

The study shows that during that time, air pressure increased during the launches, and the sound pressure peaked at 144 decibels, though it specifies that the readings exceeded the sound meter’s limit. For comparison, windows can break at 150 decibels, and they begin rattling at 120 decibels, per KRGV.

“What it shows is that, number one, that the impacts are real, that they are being felt by these structures,” Port Isabel City Manager Jared Hockema tells KRGV. He adds to the New York Times that some residents reported minor damage to their homes after Starship launches.

There are currently no regulations on rocket noise levels, per the statement, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and SpaceX did not respond to the New York Times’ requests for comment.

The results of the BYU study “show that some sound metrics agree with those presented in the FAA’s most recent Environmental Assessment (EA) from 2024, while some predictions made by the EA are off,” writes Haygen Warren in a post for NASASpaceflight.com, which is not affiliated with NASA.

Nevertheless, the researchers stress the importance of understanding how the launch noise impacts surrounding communities and environment, especially in light of SpaceX’s plans to increase its Starship launches to 100 per year.

But the BYU team isn’t finished yet—they were also on site this week, analyzing acoustic data from Starship’s launch on Tuesday. During that test—the rocket’s sixth flight—Starship fired an engine in space in a key step forward and splashed down in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX chose to abort an attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster, however, which it had achieved last month on the first try.

Margherita Bassi | READ MORE

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.