Multidisciplinary analysis of launch vehicles including environmental impact
Creators: name:  E. TORMENA 
name:   A.R. SILVA TEIXEIRA 
name:   L. BREVAULT  
name:   M. BALESDENT 
name:   A. URBANO 
Publisher: name: Proceedings of  the 9th European Conference for Aerospace Sciences. Lille, France, 27 June - 1 July, 2022
Year: 2022
Subjects: SUSTAINABLE SPACE
LOGISTICS

description: Abstract The space economy dynamics given by the New Space ecosystem are changing at a fast rate which currently is not left unnoticed. Launch activities are thriving and the need to assess environmental impacts of an exponential increase on the amount of launches per year has emerged. In particular, the future number of launches per year, raises concerns about launching systems emissions and their impact on the environment. Different types of environmental impacts of launch vehicle design can be considered. This may include impacts on human health (toxicity), climate change (greenhouse gases effects), ecology (ozone depletion), resources depletion, etc.3 These effects arise throughout the entire launchers life-cycle, including their design, manufacturing and transportation, operational and disposal phases. The present study is focused on the operational phase of a launcher and focuses particularly on its emissions and consequent radiative forcing (RF). Notably, the paper is focused on the effect of certain launchers flight emissions which are significant in the stratosphere,1 such as: water vapour, carbon dioxide, alumina particles and carbon soot. Previous works2 have already showed how those chemical species damage the Earths thermal balance, especially in an area in the stratosphere where they accumulate, called indeed Accumulation Region. 4 Launcher vehicles emissions result in a set of important environmental phenomena, such as mesospheric clouds in the poles, ozone depletion and acid rains. These effects and their relation to climate change are scientific fields barely explored. Simultaneously, launchers emissions are a complex outcome that depends not only on the chemical dynamics during the combustion, but is also strongly influenced by the design and the mission analysis. This paper is focused on the inclusion of environmental impact analysis within the launch vehicle design process. Indeed, several design variables such as the total amount of propellant, the type of propellant, its mixture ratio and the guidance influence directly both performances and the stratospheric impact in the accumulation region. The radiative forcing (RF) is the physical parameter chosen to assess the impact on the thermal balance. This work proposes to include environmental impact as a new discipline in the multidisciplinary design process coupling legacy disciplines such as propulsion, trajectory, aerodynamics and structure. The proposed multidisciplinary design analysis enables to provide decision-making regarding several criteria such as launch vehicle performance (e.g. total mass of vehicle) and environmental impact (e.g. RF). It is included an exploration of different design options in a tentative of consolidating the compromise between more sustainable and reliable types of propellants for reusable launch vehicles, propelled on LOX/LH2, LOX/CH4 and LOX/RP ? 1. The optimizations are analyzed with the environmental footprint of the mission, in particular the total RF produced, which is expected to depend in particular on the O/F ratio. References [1] DeSain John D., Brian B. Brady, and Air Force Space Command. Potential atmospheric impact generated by space launches worldwideupdate for emission estimates from 1985 to 2013. Technical Report 2014-02140, Aerospace, June 2014. Copyright 2021 by TORMENA Enrico, SILVA TEIXEIRA Ana Rita, BREVAULT Loic, BALESDENT Mathieu and URBANO Annafederica. Published by the EUCASS association with permission. LAUNCHERS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT [2] P. Forster, V. Ramaswamy, P. Artaxo, T. Berntsen, R. Betts, D.W. Fahey, J. Haywood, J. Lean, D.C. Lowe, G. Myhre, J. Nganga, R. Prinn, G. Raga, M. Schulz, and R. Van Dorland. 2007: Changes in atmospheric constituents and in radiative forcing. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. [3] T. Maury, P. Loubet, S. Morales Serrano, A. Gallice, and G. Sonnemann. Application of environmental life cycle assessment (lca) within the space sector: A state of the art. Acta Astronautica, pages 122135, 2020. [4] Martin N. Ross and Patti M. Sheaffer. Radiative forcing caused by rocket engine emissions. Earths Future 2.4, pages 177196, 2014.