Safety officials finally have a good idea of what a big rocket explosion can do

When Starship comes to Florida, Chatman said the initial BDA in place when the rocket is fueled will extend an average distance of about 6,000 feet from the pad, for a total diameter of roughly 12,000 feet. The exact size can change based on environmental conditions each day. Roads, waterways, and facilities within that footprint will be inaccessible during Starship tests, launches, and returns.

The Commercial Space Federation, a lobbying group whose members include SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other companies with methane-fueled rockets, has argued the government should set its TNT blast equivalency to no greater than 25 percent, a change that would greatly reduce the size of keep-out zones around launch pads.

“We know we have a conservative approach,” Chatman said. “We know that we will be able to bring in that BDA… We don’t know how far we’ll be able to bring that in. We are going to make a data-driven decision on how much we reduce the BDA, but until we have all that data fed into the models and that true analysis done, we’re going to continue with the conservative approach that we have with that 100 percent blast TNT equivalency because we just validated that (with the Blue Origin explosion) … We had zero casualties, zero injuries across the board.”

Outside of the launch pad itself, Chatman said the overpressure from the New Glenn blast shattered windows at a Space Force hangar now used as a museum about a mile away from the pad. There was also damage to a weather balloon facility at the base. Blue Origin is on the hook to pay for any repairs to property outside of the pad, as it is for the build of the pad itself, Chatman said.

“The Launch Complex 36 rebuild, that’s on Blue, and we’ll look to Blue to be able to support them to continue to work as they rebuild that pad,” Chatman said.

Story updated at 3 pm EST (20:00 UTC) to include FAA’s role in methane explosive analysis.