Speaker
Description
As the space sector experiences exponential growth, the environmental footprint of launch vehicles necessitates comprehensive examination. This presentation synthesizes advances in integrating environmental assessments into launch vehicle design, focusing on atmospheric emissions and life cycle analysis. This work focuses on the integration of predictive Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) into design frameworks to enable systematic evaluations of sustainability alongside performance from preliminary design phases. For that purpose, a Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization approach is adopted, with new disciplines in charge of evaluating the Life Cycle Analysis of the launcher. This enables trade-off analyses considering both classical performance criteria (Gross-Lift-Off-Weight) as well as environmental footprint. Furthermore, quantification of uncertainties and sensitivity analysis can also be conducted in order to identify the impact of misknowledge on the LCA (e.g., database, emissions models) on the climate impact estimation. The preliminary results obtained with the approaches under development are illustrated on the design of a Two-Stage-To-Orbit launch vehicle highlighting performance-climate impact trade-offs. This work is part of an on-going effort involving ONERA, ISAE-Supaero and CNES.
