The environmental impact of space transport

Reusable Rockets and the Environment

“…As of now, there is little research quantifying the overall effects of greenhouse gases produced by rockets, probably due to the fact that they are infrequent. For example, there were only twenty-three launches from the United States in the year 2017 (Weinzierl, 2018) Another way that rockets pollute, which usually goes unnoticed except in the immediate vicinity of a launch, is the acoustic pollution (Koroleva et al, 2018;Lin et al, 2017). Rockets are extremely loud because their propellants are combusted then accelerated to many times the speed of sound, which creates acoustic shock waves.…”

“…Research suggested that the biggest hazard came from rocket fueled fires (10). Similar to UDMH, a toxic amount of fifty to 500 grams of kerosene per kilogram of soil severely depletes microbial life (4). It was also demonstrated that kerosene did not seem to continue to contaminate over time to the same level as UDMH (4).…”

Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry Quantification of 1,1-Dimethylhydrazine Transformation Products in Aqueous Solutions: Accelerated Water Sample Preparation

“…The use of highly toxic rocket fuel based on 1,1-dimethylhydrazine (unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, UDMH) in many types of Russian, Indian, EU, and Chinese launch vehicles inevitably gives rise to a risk of environmental pollution. It can be associated with an ingress of rocket fuel into soils and water bodies in fall sites of spent rocket stages, emergency situations, as well as the disposal of UDMH containing wastewater generated at launch sites during storage, transportation of fuel, and refueling the carrier rockets [ 1 , 2 ]. The situation is complicated by the high reactivity of UDMH causing the rapid formation of a large number (up to several hundreds) of toxic nitrogen-containing products of its oxidative transformations upon contact with atmospheric air or reagents used in the detoxification of waters and soils [ 3 , 4 , 5 ].…”

Quantification of transformation products of rocket fuel unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine in air using solid‐phase microextraction

“…In 2018–2020, 127 of the 329 orbital rocket launches were conducted using highly toxic hypergolic fuel – unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) [1] mixed with NO 2 as an oxidant. After launch, burned‐out rocket stages fall at the distance ≤1500 km from a launchpad [2], such as Baikonur (Kazakhstan), resulting in contamination of the environment with ≤4 tons of unburned fuel [3–5] in the case of a successful launch and ≤600 tons in the case of an accident [6]. Under the effect of NO 2 , oxygen, sunlight, elevated temperatures, biota, soil, and water constituents [7–9], UDMH transforms into a number of potentially dangerous substances – amines, nitrosoamines, triazoles, pyrazoles, and amides [10,11].…”

“…In Kazakhstan, only NDMA is regulated by hygienical standards – 0.1 μg/m 3 in ambient air of populated areas and 10 μg/m 3 in occupational air [19]. Despite the importance of monitoring UDMH TPs in air, methods of analysis and data on concentrations of UDMH TPs in air are very scarce [15,20], particularly compared to soil [2,4,21,22]. This is caused by the lack of analytical methods, which are not available for most UDMH TPs.…”