Science, Space and Technology News 2024
Thousands of satellites have been deployed into “megaconstellations” to fulfill the growing need for worldwide internet services, with many more planned for launch soon. However, these compact satellites have a brief operational life and are known to emit pollutants that can harm the ozone layer when they disintegrate upon reentry. A recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters has, for the first time, quantified the extent of this pollution.
The 1987 Montreal Protocol successfully regulated ozone-damaging CFCs to protect the ozone layer, shrinking the ozone hole over Antarctica within the next fifty years. However, the unexpected increase in aluminum oxides could interrupt the progress made in ozone recovery in the coming decades.in low Earth orbit, 6,000 are Starlink satellites launched in the last few years. Demand for global internet coverage is driving a rapid ramp-up of launches of small communication satellite swarms.
Yet little attention has yet been paid to pollutants formed when satellites fall into the upper atmosphere and burn. Earlier studies of satellite pollution largely focused on the consequences of propelling a launch vehicle into space, such as the release of rocket fuel. The new study, by a research team from the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, is the first realistic estimate of the extent of this long-lived pollution in the upper atmosphere, the authors said.
In 2022, reentering satellites increased aluminum in the atmosphere by 29.5% over natural levels, the researchers found. The modeling showed that a typical 250-kilogram satellite with 30% of its mass being aluminum will generate about 30 kilograms of aluminum oxide nanoparticles during its reentry plunge. Most of these particles are created in the mesosphere, 50-85 kilometers above Earth’s surface.
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