Optimal trajectories for maneuvering reentry vehicles

Many demanding aerospace missions today require maneuverable re-entry vehicles that can fly trajectories that have stringent path and terminal constraints, including those that cannot be written as drag or energy constraints. This work presents a method based on trajectory optimization techniques to assess the capabilities of the re-entry vehicle by computing the landing and re-entry footprints while meeting these conditions. The models used also account for important non-linear effects seen during hypersonic flight. Several different vehicles are studied, and the effects of parameters such the maximum G-loading, stagnation point heat rate, and the maximum L/D are analyzed.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Undurti, Aditya

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David W. Miller and Ronald J. Proulx.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46572

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/46572