Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Research Highlights, Sep/Oct 98

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Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Research Highlights, Sep/Oct 98

New AFOSR-sponsored research shows that exhausts from solid- fueled rocket motors have very limited impact on stratospheric ozone. The research provides the Air Force with hard data to support continued access to space using the existing fleet of rockets and rocket technology. This basic research data allows the Air Force: * to maintain a strongly proactive environmental stance, and * to meet federal guidelines regarding environmental impacts. Long-standing conjecture within the international rocket community suggests that chlorine compounds and alumina particulates produced in solid rocket motor (SRM) exhausts could create localized, temporary ozone toss in rocket plumes following launches. The extent of a local depletion of ozone and its environmental impact depends on details of the composition and chemistry in these plumes. Yet direct measurements of plume composition and plume chemistry in the stratosphere had never been made. Uncertainty about these details left the Air Force and commercial space launch capability potentially vulnerable to questions about the environmental impact of rocket launches. In 1995, APOSR and the Space and Missiles Systems Center Launch Programs Office (SMC/CL) jointly began the Rocket Impacts on Stratospheric Ozone (RISO) program to make the first-ever detailed measurements of rocket exhaust plumes. These measurements were aimed at understanding how the exhaust from large rocket motors effect the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer. The studies determined: the size distribution of alumina particles in these exhausts, the amount of reactive chlorine in SRM exhaust, and the size and duration of localized ozone toss in the rocket plumes.