New Generation Space Vehicle Operations in the United Arab Emirates – An Airspace and Risk Assessment

Oliver Lehmann; Ramy El-jabı; Kirk Webster; Aya Rachdı

doi:10.55549/epstem.1409499

Conference Paper

Year 2023, Volume: 26, 242 - 253, 30.12.2023

Oliver Lehmann Ramy El-jabı Kirk Webster Aya Rachdı

https://doi.org/10.55549/epstem.1409499

Abstract

References

Air Line Pilots Association. (2020). ALPA white paper: Safe integration of commercial space operations into the U.S. national airspace system and beyond. Retrieved from https://www.alpa.org/-/media/ALPA/Files/pdfs/news-events
Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (2021). Hazard and risk. Retrieved from: https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/hazard_risk.html
Committee on Space Shuttle Meteoroid/Debris Risk Management (1997); Protecting the space shuttle from meteoroids and orbital debris. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, Sciences, Engineering, Medicine.

New Generation Space Vehicle Operations in the United Arab Emirates – An Airspace and Risk Assessment

Year 2023, Volume: 26, 242 - 253, 30.12.2023

Oliver Lehmann Ramy El-jabı Kirk Webster Aya Rachdı

https://doi.org/10.55549/epstem.1409499

Abstract

Air Transport is a highly technocentric and rapidly evolving industry. While certain legacy systems persist, more advanced technological concepts for carrying payloads and passengers further, faster, and more efficiently place this particular industry at the forefront of the most cutting-edge research and development initiatives in the fields of autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and advanced communication, navigation, surveillance applications. While drone technologies and applications have been widely and comprehensively addressed in recent years, the incipient hypersonic and suborbital commercial transport sector has received disproportionately less academic attention. Although certain suborbital passenger transport concepts such as the German Aerospace Center’s SpaceLiner are proposed for the more distant future, other concepts have reached operational status. A recent addition into the foray has been Blue Origin and its vertically launched New Shepherd autonomous vehicle. The United Arab Emirates, an increasingly active spacefaring nation, has signaled its interest. Among the nation’s highly ambitious short and long-term initiatives is the idea of launching space tourism flights from its own soil. Blue Origin, along with other candidates, has emerged as a contender to operate its New Shepard vehicle from a UAE-based spaceport. This paper explores how Next Generation Space Vehicle Operations (NGSVO) could impact a highly dense and compact airspace when operating from and to a UAE spaceport. Preliminary results suggest that under certain circumstances, NGSVOs may indeed affect existing Air Traffic Management (ATM) operations and pose increased safety risks while leading to higher fuel consumption and larger carbon dioxide footprints of regular air traffic. To establish a benchmark for future comparisons, the current study applies traditional airspace segregation methods to the UAE airspace to accommodate a specific type of NGSVO. Operational gains may be deduced by comparing the results of future studies applying more advanced ATM concepts to those reported in the current study.

Keywords

Space vehicle operation , Space port , Risk assessment , Air traffic management

References

Air Line Pilots Association. (2020). ALPA white paper: Safe integration of commercial space operations into the U.S. national airspace system and beyond. Retrieved from https://www.alpa.org/-/media/ALPA/Files/pdfs/news-events
Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (2021). Hazard and risk. Retrieved from: https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/hazard_risk.html
Committee on Space Shuttle Meteoroid/Debris Risk Management (1997); Protecting the space shuttle from meteoroids and orbital debris. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, Sciences, Engineering, Medicine.

There are 3 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language	English
Subjects	Environmental and Sustainable Processes
Journal Section	Articles
Authors	Oliver Lehmann Ramy El-jabı Kirk Webster Aya Rachdı
Early Pub Date	December 25, 2023
Publication Date	December 30, 2023
Published in Issue	Year 2023 Volume: 26

Cite

APA	Lehmann, O., El-jabı, R., Webster, K., Rachdı, A. (2023). New Generation Space Vehicle Operations in the United Arab Emirates – An Airspace and Risk Assessment. The Eurasia Proceedings of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics, 26, 242-253. https://doi.org/10.55549/epstem.1409499