“The debris from Starship fell into our airspace in the Southern Bahamas. Following the incident, SpaceX [employed] contingency measures, which include immediate and continual communication with Bahamian officials,” the government said in a statement. The government said it has since been assured by SpaceX that the debris contains no toxic materials and that the debris is not expected to have any significant impact on marine life or water quality.

“SpaceX teams will be in The Bahamas to conduct full debris recovery and cleanup efforts. We expect our applicable agencies, including  the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection will observe the clean-up activities,” the government said.

The SpaceX Starship spacecraft exploded on Thursday minutes after lifting off from Texas, dooming an attempt to deploy mock satellites in the second consecutive failure this year for Elon Musk’s Mars rocket programme.

Several videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near south Florida and the Bahamas after Starship’s breakup in space, which occurred shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off.