Award Notice - OAR Spaceflight Emissions Simulation

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Western Acquisition Division (WAD) awarded a sole source, firm-fixed-price purchase order to The Aerospace Corporation with a 12-month period of performance under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1).

As part of the Earth’s Radiation Budget (ERB) Program, the proposed work addresses NOAA research goals to understand the impacts of human-caused aerosol injections by (1) creating an authoritative emissions database with widespread application to assessments of rocket and reentry emissions and (2) developing improved models of direct injections of aerosols into the atmosphere from future spaceflight operations, and (3) supporting analysis of model results and atmosphere measurements obtained during past and future NOAA research campaigns.

The scope of services includes:

• Production of current and future inventories of global launches and reentries and associated emissions. The inventory will include gaseous (CO, CO2, OH, H2O, NO, N2O, unburned fuel) and particulate (BC, alumina, and other metallic compounds) emission components from current and proposed future space systems.

• Collaboration with NOAA researchers to formulate detailed descriptions of spaceflight emissions as inputs for global atmosphere models.

• Assist NOAA in the interpretation of global model simulations of the impacts of spaceflight emissions and of the data collected during airborne measurement campaigns that include air influenced by rocket or reentry emissions.