The world’s increasing reliance on satellites for everything from weather monitoring to communications services to GPS, as well as a burgeoning space-tourism industry, means rocket launches are growing rapidly.

Also growing is concern about what impact all of those launches might have on the atmosphere. While emissions from aerospace activities are still relatively small compared with those of aviation and other industries, some of the pollutants released have the potential to contribute to global warming and damage the ozone layer, researchers say.