Aiming at a comprehensive sustainability impact analysis for space activities over all phases

Abstract

With increasing number of launches and satellites, e.g. due to satellite constellations, and projected plans for human space exploration beyond the low Earth orbit, it is to be expected that impacts on sustainability due to space activities can no longer be neglected. Following the triple bottom line approach, sustainability and sustainable development are resting on three dimensions: environment, social and economic, which should be considered in comprehensive assessments. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has recently started the research initiative Space Sustainability and Sustainable Development (S3D), whose goal is to develop a comprehensive method for evaluating sustainability impacts by space activities throughout all their mission phases (i.e. 0 to F). For assessment on space-mission scale, a Life-Cycle-SustainabilityAssessment approach is being developed, evaluating e.g. indicators and data sources. This approach aims at identifying hot spots of space mission impacts on sustainability including e.g. space and launch segments. By applying a life cycle thinking perspective (i.e. production, use, and disposal/recycling of every component), the proposed approach will allow reducing impacts over all space mission phases, e.g. from early design studies in a Concurrent Engineering environment over integration and testing in late phases to operation and disposal. A special focus is placed on the climate impact due to launch vehicle use and reentry. This involves exhaust inventory processing and analysis, including experimentation to understand effects of the exhaust plume interacting with the upper atmosphere and adaptation of existing chemistryclimate models to understand the atmospheric effects due to that exhaust. This paper presents the various aspects of the DLR initiative, highlights their current major results and the way forward to a more comprehensive analysis of sustainability impacts of space activities.