Value chain · CLM-0855
In plain terms
A 2024 peer-reviewed study says earlier life-cycle assessments of rockets may have understated their climate impact by a hundred to a thousand times, because they left out what exhaust and burning-up aluminium do high in the atmosphere; but it measures whole launch programmes rather than emissions per kilogram launched.
The claim as recorded
SRC-220 states in its abstract that "the analysis reveals a potential underestimation of climate impacts in previous LCA's by 2-3 orders of magnitude due to the absence of high altitude characterisation of rocket exhaust emissions and demised aluminium oxides", and its functional unit is a forecast launch market or mission set rather than payload mass, so it gives no emissions figure per kilogram to orbit.
Scope and limits
The modal is "a potential underestimation", not an established one, and it may not be hardened. The claim is about previous launch-vehicle life cycle assessments generally, NOT specifically about any SBSP assessment. Because the functional unit is a launch market rather than payload mass, this paper's magnitude CANNOT be applied to an SBSP deployment to produce a corrected figure, and any attempt to do so would be inventing a number the source does not support. It bounds the direction and possible scale of an exclusion; it does not size that exclusion for SBSP.
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
Abstract, PDF p.1 (printed p.1), quoted from "the analysis reveals" to the end of the sentence, which opens "Moreover,": "the analysis reveals a potential underestimation of climate impacts in previous LCA's by 2-3 orders of magnitude due to the absence of high altitude characterisation of rocket exhaust emissions and demised aluminium oxides". Functional unit, PDF p.2 (printed p.2): "The forecasted market is composed of a set of missions delivering payloads to multiple orbits, which is the functional unit for the LCA." Retrieved from https://elib.dlr.de/204715/1/1-s2.0-S0094576524002534-main.pdf, HTTP 200, 2.7 MB, 2026-09-04.
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-008 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0855
CLM-0855, Energy Aperture, as of 2024.