Technical note: How rocket launches could threaten Australia’s coastal wildlife

This post is a technical note to accompany the article I published this week on the University of Melbourne’s Pursuit platform. It includes additional details regarding the potential impacts on wildlife – including EPBC-listed species – of the planned rocket-launch facility at Whalers Way in South Australia, plus a list of references.

Summary

A proposed new rocket-launch facility at Whalers Way, on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, has been granted approval to proceed under the federal EPBC Act and the South Australian Environment Protection Act. Whalers Way supports remnant woodland, shrubland and coastal heath that are home to two species of birds listed as Endangered under the EPBC Act (the Eyre Peninsula southern emu-wren and the Mallee whipbird); its beaches and nearby Liguanea Island provide habitat for the endemic Australian sea-lion, also listed as Endangered under the EPBC Act.

In total, more than 700 species of plants and animals are known to live within a 5 km radius of the proposed facility (taking the mid-point between the two planned launch pads as the centre of the circle; data from the Atlas of Living Australia). It sits within a Heritage Agreement Reserve (HA148), which was established in 1988 to protect the native vegetation of the southern Eyre Peninsula and the biodiversity it supports.

While the construction and operation of this facility could have a range of negative impacts on the wildlife of Whalers Way, including direct habitat removal, chemical contamination of the site by rocket propellants, an increased risk of fire, impacts of falling rocket debris on marine environments, and pollution of the broader atmosphere (Abelson and Thresher, 2026; Mowbray, 2025), I have focused on the acoustics of rocket launches.

The field of acoustics is playing catch-up with a new reality of regular rocket launches and how they may impact the sound environment experienced by both people and wildlife. I have sought to identify recent, relevant literature, much of which has been published since the original application for the Whalers Way facility was prepared. The acoustics of a rocket launch can be complex. In my Pursuit piece, I discuss three aspects: the blast wave, the sound wave and the sonic boom. All three have the potential to affect nearby wildlife.

The acoustics of a rocket launch

Blast waves

A blast wave is generated from an explosion by the sudden release of large amounts of energy in a small space, and usually consists of two components: the shock wave and the blast wind (Kulkarni et al. 2013). In the case of a rocket launch in air, the rocket’s propellant ignites in a controlled explosion and forces air molecules outward in one direction instead of oscillating them back and forth, creating a thin layer of highly compressed and heated air. This is the known as the shock wave, measured as overpressure.

Because of its high pressure and temperature, the physical properties of the air change at the disturbance front, allowing the shock wave to move outwards at supersonic speeds relative to the undisturbed air. When the shock wave arrives at a given location, the pressure and temperature of the air increase suddenly. The shock wave is then followed by the blast wind, which is a rush of air moving at the same speed as the expanding shock wave. Next, there is a pressure drop to below the original air pressure, a suction wind that blows back towards the explosion site, and finally a return to the baseline air pressure.

Close to an uncontrolled explosion, a shock wave can travel at several times the speed of sound and reach pressures more than ten times greater than the average air pressure at sea level (Settles, 2006). An uncontrolled explosion would not occur under the normal operation of a rocket-launch facility, but could occur in the case of launch failure (Ding et al., 2024).

Rockets that use a solid fuel source, such as the Vega rockets used as an example of the type of rockets planned for launch at Whalers Way, create a sharp ignition overpressure (IOP) wave and may also produce a second overpressure wave from the ducts of the launch pad (DOP). These waves can interact in complex ways, and have the potential to damage the rocket and its launch pad. They are strong enough to cause physical trauma to nearby wildlife (e.g., animals within several hundred metres of the launch pad), such as blast-induced neurotrauma or barotrauma.

Sound waves

The birds of Whalers Way (I found 108 species listed in the ALA database mentioned above) communicate with each other using sound. The sound wave associated with a rocket launch could cause acoustic trauma in nearby birds, damaging the hair cells of their inner ears and resulting in temporary or permanent hearing loss. Data summarised by Dooling et al. (2008) indicate that some – but not all – birds can regain their hearing following acoustic trauma, and this process of recovery can take 20–30 days or longer. During this window of time, the birds’ hearing will be compromised, making it harder for them to hear each other, their predators and their prey, with implications for survival and reproductive success. Further, repeated rocket launches within this window of time could prevent recovery from previous incidences of acoustic trauma, effectively leading to permanent hearing loss.

The two figures below show the modelled Lmax noise levels associated with launches of two example types of rockets at Whalers Way, from proposed launch sites A and B, in unweighted dB (from pages 894-895 of the EPBC Act Preliminary Documentation for the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Facility). Lmax dB represents the maximum, root-mean-square (RMS) sound pressure level measured over a short time period during a sound event. These values are most relevant for assessing potential noise impacts on wildlife in the vicinity of the launch sites, and show that the zone predicted to experience noise levels of 130 dB or higher (for the Falcon 9 rocket) includes recent records of the two endangered birds, the Eyre Peninsula southern emu-wren and Mallee whipbird.

Beyond hearing and hearing loss, studies on other sources of human-generated noise show that the high-intensity sound of rocket launches could also lead to physiological stress, DNA damage, emigration from nesting habitat, nest abandonment, and reduced breeding success.

Sonic booms

A sonic boom is an intense sound heard at ground level when a rocket reaches supersonic speeds. The amplitude (loudness) of a sonic boom varies with the size of the rocket, its direction of travel and the ambient weather conditions, and doesn’t always behave as predicted. Sonic booms have been observed to cause a startle response in wildlife, but there is limited information available on this phenomenon from Australia.

There is a nice graphic in this article by Anderson and colleagues showing how the sonic boom of rockets launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California are predicted to vary seasonally with the prevailing weather patterns. Future proposals for new rocket-launch facilities should include this type of modelling to help regulators assess the potential negative impacts of sonic booms on wildlife.

References

Abelson, S.S. and Thresher, A.C., 2026. Spaceport environmental policy in the new space era. Space Policy, p.101752. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2026.101752

Anderson, M., Gee, K.L., Hall, L.K., 2025. How the season affects if you hear a sonic boom during rocket ascent. Lay Language Paper from the 189th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. https://acoustics.org/how-the-season-affects-if-you-hear-a-sonic-boom-during-rocket-ascent/

Ang, L.P., Kong, F., Hernández-Rodríguez, E., Liu, Q., Cerrejόn, C., Feldman, M.J., Shu, L., Ye, L.X., Gao, L., Ang, L.L. and Yin, X., 2024. Rocket launches threaten global biodiversity conservation. Communications Earth & Environment, 5(1), p.799. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01963-x

Della Posta, G., Martelli, E., Stella, F., Barbagallo, D., Neri, A., Salvadore, F. and Bernardini, M., 2023. High-fidelity simulations of the aeroacoustic environment of the VEGA launch vehicle at lift-off. Computers & Fluids, 263, p.105945.

Ding, L., Cui, X., Lu, L., Yin, X., Xue, X., Zhao, Y. and Zhou, X., 2024. Rapid evaluation of the destructive power caused by accidental explosion of space launch vehicles. Aerospace, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace11020117

Dooling, R.J., Dent, M.L., Lauer, A.M., Ryals, B.M., 2008. Functional Recovery After Hair Cell Regeneration in Birds. In: Salvi, R.J., Popper, A.N., Fay, R.R. (eds) Hair Cell Regeneration, Repair, and Protection. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research, vol 33. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73364-7_4

Engel, M.S., Young, R.J., Davies, W.J., Waddington, D. and Wood, M.D., 2024. A systematic review of anthropogenic noise impact on avian species. Current Pollution Reports, 10(4), pp.684-709. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40726-024-00329-3

Gee, K.L., Hart, G.W., Cunningham, C.F., Anderson, M.C., Bassett, M.S., Mathews, L.T., Durrant, J.T., Moats, L.T., Coyle, W.L., Kellison, M.S. and Kuffskie, M.J., 2023. Space launch system acoustics: Far-field noise measurements of the Artemis-I launch. JASA Express Letters, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0016878

Gee, K.L., Kellison, M.S., Anderson, M.C., Moats, L.T., Perkins, M.T., Pulsipher, N.L., Carlston, N.F., Hart, G.W., Hall, L.K., Cantrell, O. and Villanueva, H.J.Z., 2026. Falcon 9 ascent sonic boom measurements in Ventura County, California. JASA Express Letters, 6(3), p.033601. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0043007

Gee, K.L., Lubert, C.P. and James, M.M., 2024. The roar of a rocket. Physics Today, 77(3), pp.46-47. https://doi.org/10.1063/pt.izel.cyox

Gee, K.L., Moats, L.T., Hall, L.K., Budge, R.H., McCullah-Boozer, M.R. and Hart, G.W., 2025, November. Exploring the effect of rocket launch noise on coastal birds at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. In Proceedings of ACOUSTICS (Vol. 12, No. 14).

Kulkarni, S.G., Gao, X.L., Horner, S.E., Zheng, J.Q. and David, N.V., 2013. Ballistic helmets–their design, materials, and performance against traumatic brain injury. Composite Structures, 101, pp.313-331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2013.02.014

Mortain, F., Cléro, F. and Palmieri, D., 2019, July. Full scale acoustic source identification on VEGA launch pad at lift-off. ICSV26, Jul 2019, Montréal, Canada. ⟨hal-02333532⟩

Mowbray, S., 2025. Commercial space race comes with multiple planetary health risks. Mongabay Conservation news. https://doi.org/10.66709/news-302922

PlanSA, 2024. State Planning Commission Assessment Report, Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex – Sleaford, Eyre Peninsula, April 2024. https://plan.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1423357/Assessment-Report-Whalers-Way-Orbital-Launch-Complex.pdf

Settles, G.S., 2006. High-speed imaging of shock waves, explosions and gunshots: new digital video technology, combined with some classic imaging techniques, reveals shock waves as never before. American Scientist, 94(1), pp.22-31. https://doi.org/10.1511/2006.57.22