When spacecraft re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at the end of their mission, their fiery demise contributes to an often-overlooked environmental problem: atmospheric pollution. But one young researcher is working to change that.
José P. Ferreira, a Ph.D. student in the USC Department of Astronautical Engineering, was recently awarded the prestigious Space for Sustainability Award from the European Space Agency (ESA) for his pioneering research on the environmental impact of spacecraft re-entry.
Ferreira’s work focuses on better understanding and mitigating the pollutants generated when space vehicles burn up on re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. “The potential problem of this return to Earth is that we are injecting anthropogenic chemicals into the atmosphere that wouldn’t occur in this concentration naturally,” he explains.