L. Bussler
DOI Number XXX-YYY-ZZZ
Conference Number HiSST 2018_1130819
Reusable launch vehicles (RLV) are considered to be a potential way towards a more economical and sustainable space transportation. The range of RLV systems currently under investigation goes from partly reusable systems for transport of payload to orbit to fully reusable vehicles for hypersonic intercontinental point to point transport of passengers on earth. A significant portion of these systems contains winged reusable stages. The atmospheric reentry of winged RLV stages is an essential part of the overall RLV mission and its adequate assessment is mandatory from the early design phase on. In this paper an optimal control approach is followed for reentry trajectory analysis of a number of winged RLV stages investigated in DLR. The optimal control problem is solved with TransWORHP, the transcriptor for the nonlinear programming (NLP) solver WORHP. The obtained optimized trajectories are compared with results of alternative methods as e.g. drag acceleration guidance. Conclusions regarding the advantages of optimal control methods for reentry trajectory optimization from a systems analysis point of view are drawn. The impact of optimal control methods application on RLV systems preliminary design is assessed.