When Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle accidentally exploded during a static test fire in May 2026, the explosion generated low frequency soundwaves below the range of human hearing.
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories used those infrasound signals to independently confirm the time and location of the explosion and estimate the yield of the blast, as they report in The Seismic Record .
The results demonstrate how infrasound analysis could be useful in monitoring launch anomalies, according to authors Elizabeth Silber and Logan Scamfer. The study also provides valuable information on the infrasound signals produced by liquid oxygen/ liquid methane propellant, increasingly used in heavy-lift space rockets.
“Full launch vehicle-scale observations involving cryogenic fuels, specifically liquid oxygen and liquid methane, are still very, very limited,” Silber explained. “Most existing information comes from much smaller experiments or historical tests involving different propellant systems.”
“This was a very rare opportunity to study a large real-world energetic event involving liquid methane rocket fuel,” she said.
Infrasound is a well-established method of detecting large explosions and other energetic atmospheric events, such as the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption . The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) uses infrasound as one of its main monitoring techniques to detect nuclear test explosions.
For the New Glenn explosion, the researchers analyzed time-stamped video of the accident, along with infrasound signals detected across a network of broadband microbarometers.
Silber and Scamfer back-projected data from 36 of these regional stations, some up to 1700 kilometers away from the blast, to confirm the time and location of the explosion at Cape Canaveral.
They further analyzed the infrasound signals to estimate the yield of the explosion, calculating it to be .131 kilotons TNT-equivalent.
The amount of fuel that was onboard the New Glenn at the time is not publicly known, but the researchers compared their yield to a plausible estimate of onboard chemical-energy reserves. Under a full-fill scenario, about 3% to 4% of the available chemical energy was expressed in the rapid pressure-producing blast, or about 6% if the reservoirs were only half full.
“In a large propellant accident, the fuel and oxidizer do not necessarily mix and react all at once. Some material can contribute to the initial blast, while other material can burn more gradually in the fireball and the plume,” said Silber. “So what we found is kind of consistent with previous liquid propellant experiments.”
Silber noted that infrasound can detect all kinds of “impulsive events,” including meteroids, ocean waves, industrial accidents and mining explosions, among others.
Last year, Silber and her colleagues published several papers about using infrasound to detect the reentry of the sample return capsule from the OSIRIS-Rex robotic space mission to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
And in 2021, she was part of a Sandia research team that deployed an infrasound instrument to the stratosphere on a solar hot air balloon —recording signals from a successful Blue Origin rocket launch.
The Seismic Record
Observational study
Not applicable
Infrasound Detection, Geolocation, and Yield Estimate of the May 2026 Blue Origin New Glenn Static‐Fire Explosion
12-Aug-2026