Mapping the atmospheric footprint of the space industry

Welcome to this global dataset and interactive explorer covering rocket launch and spacecraft re-entry emissions from 1957 to 2025. Built on rigorous scientific research, this tool is designed to support further investigation and regulation of a rapidly growing industry.

1957–2025

Years of launch & re-entry data

Emitted species tracked

Global

Coverage of launch sites & re-entry locations

Launch Emissions

Filter emissions by launch site, vehicle, mission type and altitude across nearly seven decades of orbital launches.

Explore launches →

Re-entry Emissions

Track the atmospheric impact of spacecraft and debris burning up on re-entry, by location, object type and mission.

Explore re-entries →

Why it matters

An emerging, poorly-quantified source of emissions

As launch cadence accelerates and megaconstellations grow, rocket exhaust and re-entry burn-up are an increasingly significant and poorly understood source of atmospheric pollutants. This tracker makes the underlying data explorable, filterable and downloadable.

Developed by

UCL & Harvard-Smithsonian

Connor Barker and Eloise Marais (UCL), in collaboration with Jonathan McDowell (Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), with funding from the European Research Council (Horizon 2020, grant 851854).