Instruments in space imaging land have been shown to also observe pollution plumes from large power plants at very high spatial resolution. In this project, we're establishing feasibility of also detecting rocket launch pollution plumes with these instruments. Rockets release pollutants at higher rates than large power plants, but are periodic and brief, lasting a few minutes. Since the advent of megaconstellations, 50-80 more rockets are launched each year, increasing the chance of detection using these low-Earth orbiting instruments. Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) funding has enabled us to derisk our exciting idea!

Early results of our first retrieval of an NO2 plume from a rocket launch using Sentinel-2:

People: Eloise Marais (UCL; PI), Connor Barker (UCL; postdoc), Tuomas Koskela (UCL; Research Software Engineer), Daniel Varon (MIT; collaborator)

Funding: ARIA Opportunity Seed funding source. ARIA project space dedicated to our idea.

ARIA Award Coverage: UCL Geography News.

Observations in Use: Sentinel-2 (Copernicus), Landsat (NASA/USGS)

Models in Use: GEOS-Chem High Performance (GCHP) Chemical transport Model, MicroHH plume model

Observations under consideration: SuperDove and Tanager (both Planet Labs)

Related Publications:

• C. R. Barker, E. A. Marais, E. Y. P. Tan, S. D. Eastham, G. S. Diskin, J. P. DiGangi, Y. Choi, A. Rollins, E. Waxman, T. P. Bui, C. Gatebe, J. Dean-Day, R. Poudyal, Radiative forcing and ozone depletion of a decade of satellite megaconstellation missions, Earth's Future, 14, e2025EF007229 (2026), doi:10.1029/2025EF007229. [Article].
• C. R. Barker, E. A. Marais, J. C. McDowell, Global 3D rocket launch and re-entry air pollutant and CO2 emissions at the onset of the megaconstellation era, Nature Scientific Data, 11, 1079 (2024), doi:10.1038/s41597-024-03910-z. [Article].
• R. G. Ryan, E. A. Marais, C. J. Balhatchet, S. D. Eastham, Impact of rocket launch and space debris air pollutant emissions on stratospheric ozone and global climate, Earth's Future, 10, e2021EF002612 (2022), doi:10.1029/2021EF002612. [Article].

Related Data:

• Online Launch and Re-entry Emissions Tracker.
• Atmospheric composition and radiative forcing changes from a decade of growth in megaconstellation emissions obtained using GEOS-Chem. C. R. Barker, E. A. Marais (2025). doi:10.5522/04/30003763. [Data].
• Global 3D rocket launch and re-entry air pollutant and carbon dioxide emissions for 2020-2022. C. R. Barker, E. A. Marais (2024). doi:10.5522/04/26325382. [Data].
• Rocket atmospheric impact - Emissions Inventory and Results. R. Ryan et al. (2022). doi:10.5522/04/17032349. [Data].

Presentations:

Tracking rocket launch and spacecraft re-entry emissions across the space age, poster by Connor Barker at the European Geophysical Union General Assembly (EGU), 8 May 2026. [Poster].