Satellites support humans in their daily life activities. These satellites are transported to specific orbits around the globe by launchers, or so-called «Space Transportation Vehicles». Some orbits already contain high amounts of space debris, which is a (collision) risk for all items in these orbits. High numbers of launches are planned for the near future. The Future Launchers Preparatory Program (FLPP) of the European Space Agency wants to learn more about the environmental impacts of various architectures of missions, Space Transportation Vehicles, or “Green Space Logistics”, for instance:
- Future launchers, including investigation of potential future propellants (e.g. Ariane 6)
- Reusable launchers (e.g. SPACE-X launchers)
- Transporting «Active Debris Removal Satellites» to orbits with high amounts of space debris to remove some of the debris
Together with our partners, we are building a new Assessment and Comparison software tool which allows the ESA engineers to enter their design data – for instance on material use (type/mass), propellant type, thrust needed, thrust curve during launch, and target orbit. Background data stem from an in-house ESA LCA database and the ecoinvent database. These entries and choices are translated into selected environmental impacts, e.g. climate change impacts or ozone layer depletion. Further, the collision risk at various orbits leading to higher amounts of space debris needs to be quantified for each mission. A «Space Debris Index» is developed within this project by the eSpace Center partner and coupled with the tool.
The engineers can discover which Life Cycle Stages or building blocks contribute most to these impacts, and can e.g. evaluate the potential benefits of reusable launchers or various system designs. They can identify trade-offs between chosen environmental impact categories.
FLPP further wants to prepare for digitalization, and wants a tool that allows coupling with other tools or codes. Due to the open-source nature of our python-based LEA software tool «Brightway2» for LCA, we can serve this need and support such activities. For instance, the impacts of the emission of various combustion species from the propellants during the launch event into different layers of the atmosphere are not yet well-known, including their accumulative behavior and environmental effects. First models exist which could be coupled to the tool in the future.