(2) Reduction in ozone due to catalytic reaction cycles involving injected H0x and N0x. Tn the mesosphere, the major HO^ catalytic cycles involve the reactions, Ozone chemical loss in the upper mesosphere is controlled largely by H0x reactions, and the ozone concentration will vary inversely with the H0x concentration. Nevertheless, the total column abundance of ozone, which is dominated by the ozone layer between 10 and 30 km, would not be affected significantly by a mesospheric depletion. However, a change in mesospheric ozone might lead to a change in mesopause temperature since ozone cools the mesospohere by infrared emission. The projected change in the average stratospheric water vapor content due to SPS rocket launch activity is only of the order of 1%; such a change would have negligible photochemical consequences. NO produced above 70 km by reentering SPS rockets will have little effect on mesospheric ozone because the reactions of NO + 0^ and N©2 + 0 are very slow at these heights. Moreover, the expected rate of SPS NO production is too small on a global scale to affect stratospheric N0x levels significantly. (3) Ionospheric alterations, including: (a) Additional hydration of ions, most importantly in the lower E- region where water vapor is not usually present in large quantities. (b) Electron concentration decreases in regions of enhanced ion hydration, because electrons can recombine up to ten times faster with clustered positive ions than with ambient molecular ions (i.e., NO , (3) Electron concentration increases in the vicinity of reentering spacecraft, caused by solar Lyman-a photoionization of heatgenerated NO. (d) Ionizing Lyman-0 flux reductions in the vicinity of the launch plume, due to absorption by injected water vapor.
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