To coincide with the opening of a three-month window for the first space launch from UK soil, a new detailed report from Space Watch UK ‘Waste of Space: The Environmental Cost of Human Activities in Space’ examines the environmental harm from growing activity in space.
While for decades the small numbers of space launches meant that the industry’s impacts were thought to be limited, rocket launches for both military and civil purposes have rapidly increased over recent years as costs have fallen. This is driving a new ‘race for space’ with commercial and government sectors keen to capitalise on the economic and strategic advantages offered by the exploitation of space. The space sector too is undergoing rapid transformation as it moves from being government-led to funded by wealthy entrepreneurs and private companies.
The ‘Waste of Space’ report from Space Watch UK identifies in detail a number of environmental impacts of these launches including:
- Atmospheric impact: Space rockets release gases and particles directly into the atmosphere and are the only anthropogenic source of pollution in the middle and upper atmosphere. The four most commonly used rocket fuels are kerosene, hypergolic fuels, liquid hydrogen, and solid fuels. Other pollutants include black carbon (soot) from kerosene fuels, and alumina particles (aluminium oxide) and gaseous chlorine and hydrochloric acid from solid fuels. All of these substances have impacts on the atmosphere, with possible global implications.
- Launch and rocket test operations at spaceports as well as accidents, spills and leaks can cause pollution, while rocket debris may be discarded into the sea during a launch. The planning process provides weak protections for local communities and the environment from significant development projects such as spaceports.
- Space debris poses a catastrophic collision hazard to functional satellites. As the debris population grows more collisions can be expected to occur, with risks increasing geometrically. This may give rise to a self-sustaining chain of collisions known as the ‘Kessler syndrome’, threatening the use of certain orbits.
Other impact investigated include harm to the magnetosphere, light pollution and harm to marine ecospheres from debris discarded during launches.
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