ABSTRACT
Starting from the late fifties, numerous works investigated the effects of atmospheric and ionospheric perturbations caused by the burn and launch of rockets (see, e.g., Refs. [1-9]). Thus, in 1964, a comprehensive review of this subject was published in Ref. [10], which described the many possible ways rocket “pollutants” could have an environmental impact. The main assumption from this work is that the terrestrial atmosphere is sufficiently dense to absorb any conceivable shock that emanates from the resulting rocket plume. In the three decades of this publication, because of a large number of spacecraft and RLs in the United States, the former USSR, and other countries, which was called the “Shuttle and Soyuz era,” increasing evidence was found to suggest that such launches affect the near-the-Earth environment.
