From Production to Launch: a Comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment Applied to the Real Case Study of Ariane 6

This thesis analyses the biggest issues and gaps that affect current Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) practices in the space sector. It addresses how the difficulty in collecting data affects the results of the studies, indicating how an information-sharing framework, supported by the right set of laws and acts, could benefit all users. Future changes affecting launcher architectures, and therefore Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) databases, are also discussed. The document then defines the steps that need to be included when determining the impact due to the testing and propellant combustion of a launcher. Moreover, it includes the modelling, based on data collection from available off-the-shelf products, of the main components usually found in a launch vehicle. The modelled components are then used to create and analyse the Ariane 6 launcher, with thegoal of defining the environmental hotspots and eventual life cycle phases with a negligible impact. It can be concluded that most of the impacts, for which the manufacturing and launch phases are mostly responsible, affect the Global Warming Potential (GWP) and rare minerals resource use categories. Large structures, avionics and propellant production are the most impactful processes, and therefore the ones on which sustainability efforts should focus. Lastly, it can be observed how architectures with more boosters, whose overall impact is higher, are actually the more sustainable choice when normalising the results per kilogram of payload placed into orbit: it is therefore less impactful to use a bigger launch vehicle with a higher payload capacity than multiple, smaller launchers.