How NASA is Collecting Explosion Data for Next Generation Rockets

Commercial launch providers continue to advance propulsion technology with a renewed emphasis on rockets and spacecraft powered by liquid oxygen and methane.

As systems grow in size, carrying millions of pounds of propellant, the responsibility to fully understand the safety profile also increases.

Joe Schuyler

Director, NASA Stennis Engineering and Test Directorate

NASA engineers, drawing on decades of expertise in cryogenics and test operations, are conducting a final round of tests to quantify explosive power at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The data collected will provide knowledge that will help government and industry prepare with confidence.

“NASA has proven its ability to safely execute high-risk tests,” said Joe Schuyler, director of the Engineering and Test Directorate at the agency’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. “This work demonstrates how our expertise in cryogenic systems can extend beyond propulsion testing and beyond our center to execute the mission.”

The team is in the midst of this latest round of testing to collect data to develop safety protocols for a three-agency team consisting of NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the United States Space Force.

The test articles, developed by a team at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, model a generic fuel storage tank with liquid oxygen and methane separated by a common bulkhead. The tests will assess explosion hazards on three scales, based on propellant weights of 100 pounds, 2,000 pounds and 20,000 pounds.

For many tests, the barrier separating the two thrusters is intentionally breached to simulate a catastrophic failure scenario. When mixing fluids explode, instruments located on test articles and throughout a test field measure the intensity of the blast wave at certain prescribed distances. High-speed cameras are also used to measure the thermal aspects of the explosion, as well as to capture how fast and where the fragments are moving.

Jason Hopper

Deputy Project Manager of Liquid Oxygen and Methane Evaluation at NASA Stennis

“We put fuel in a rocket, detonate it in a remote location and measure the size of the boom,” said Jason Hopper, deputy project manager for liquid oxygen methane assessment at NASA Stennis.

Behind Hopper’s simple explanation lies a complex job, in which all NASA Stennis operations on site are carried out by civil servants. Testing brings together expertise in test operations, execution, logistics and cryogenics in a way rarely combined outside of actual launch operations.

“This type of testing only happens once every few decades,” Hopper said. “With so many rockets launching now, this will help with public safety, site security and any risks associated with the work.”

An immediate connection was made between the NASA team and the 780th Test Squadron ground test flight personnel at Eglin Air Force Base during an initial visit to the site.

Starting from scratch with new land and an insulated concrete slab, the NASA team transformed the area into an operational test site in about four months, part of which took place during the October 2025 government holiday.

Crews cleared the area, leveled the concrete slab and brought in cryogenic storage containers from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to hold the very cold liquid propellants, ranging from minus 260 degrees to minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit.

The custom infrastructure included fabricating 700 feet of cryogenic transfer lines and constructing racks to route the lines to the test article location.

They brought in electricity generators and transformed a shipping container into a fully equipped manufacturing workshop.

The team converted a mobile control center, provided by NASA Wallops, into a control room at NASA Stennis before moving it to the Florida test site. The control room is located 2.5 km from the blast site for initial testing, and will be moved 6 km away for larger detonations.

The requirements of this testing operation presented an additional challenge. The team had to control a system that transfers propellants without using standard control equipment. Normally, NASA Stennis uses large industrial controllers to operate equipment remotely, but this project required compact equipment in a remote location. NASA’s Data Acquisition System team provided the solution with a compact data acquisition and control system. The equipment is energy efficient and runs on lithium batteries and solar panels. The team modified existing Redline software to create a custom control system.

During testing, operators use an on-screen diagram showing all valves and instruments, while the system collects test data and controls the cryogenic propellant transfer system.

Additionally, an Eglin team installed fiber optic lines for data transmission and three pressure sensor arrays, positioned 120 degrees apart, for the blasting team at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to connect sensors and cables to capture data.

By December 2025, the team had completed construction of the site and installed the test article.

In January, two baseline tests using C-4, a high explosive with known blast characteristics, were conducted to establish a baseline for February testing.

A successful cold shock test followed, when teams circulated liquid nitrogen throughout the system to validate the cryogenic infrastructure.

The team completed the first four tests of the series in February.

For these tests, the test articles were filled with liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas, but not mixed, and C-4 was used to explode the entire test article.

In subsequent tests, the cryogenic components will be mixed and instruments will measure the resulting explosion.

The team will move to test articles weighing 2,000 pounds in March with eight tests planned. These tests will examine two failure configurations. The first configuration is a transfer tube failure, which simulates a failure of the propellant line that runs from the upper tank to the lower tank. The second configuration is a common bulkhead rupture, which simulates a rupture of the common wall between the two propellant tanks.

The largest test article, with 20,000 pounds of propellants, is expected to be tested in June. This test will simulate a common bulkhead failure scenario.

Once completed, the test series will provide critical new data for methane-based propulsion systems. The findings are expected to help shape launch site planning, safety protocols and security requirements for years to come.