Multidisciplinary approach for assessing the atmospheric impact of launchers

Exhausts from rockets influence the atmospheric chemistry and the atmospheric radiative transfer. Assessing these effects requires a multidisciplinary approach. It ranges from combustion calculations in the rocket engines to plume simulations on different scales. The plume is first analysed with computational fluid dynamic models and engineering methods. Then a diffusion model is applied and lastly a chemical transport model is used for simulations on a global scale. This approach is currently being implemented in the Atmospheric Impact of Launchers project, which is funded by ESA as part of its CleanSpace Initiative. Therefore, the focus of this study lies on rockets launching from Kourou, which are Ariane 5, Vega and Soyuz.