Satellite and rocket launches may cause the next environmental disaster after fossil fuels

After the Cold War, the space race rekindled, increasing rocket and satellite launches. These satellites help us understand the universe, but they could cause the next environmental disaster.

In the past 15 years, rocket launches tripled while satellites orbiting Earth surged tenfold. Thus, space debris—out-of-commission satellites and waste rocket stages that fall to Earth—has increased in the last decade.

According to the International Telecommunications Union, satellite spectrum applications have exceeded 1 million, so this may just be the start. All of these launches may fail, but experts now estimate that there may be 1,000,000 spacecraft orbiting Earth. These launches are mostly due to big constellation projects like SpaceX's Starlink, quote experts.

Modern and current rockets use fossil fuels, which create soot that may absorb all the heat and raise Earth's upper atmospheric temperature. Due to satellite burning, aluminium oxide levels are rising, which may upset the planet's thermal balance. Soot and aluminium oxides destroy ozone, the natural gas that protects us from ultraviolet light.

A study published in Geophysical Research Letters suggests that aluminium oxide concentrations in the mesosphere, stratosphere, and troposphere's lowest layers may grow by 650 percent in the coming decades, depleting ozone. Another NOAA study from last year found that more soot-producing rocket launches will harm the ozone layer.

Researchers also suggested that satellite reentries are producing metallic ash in the stratosphere, which could weaken Earth's magnetic field and allow more cosmic radiation to reach the surface.

Munkwan Kim, an associate professor of astronautics at the University of Southampton, told Space.com that “if we don’t take any action now or in the next five years, it might be too late.” Research on rocket flight and satellite air pollution is still in its early stages.