Jascha Wilken, Leonid Bussler, Sven Stappert, Martin Sippel, Daniel Krause, Sebastian Karl, Josef Klevanski, Christian Hantz, Lâle Evrim Briese, Klaus Schnepper, Ingrid Dietlein
DOI Number XXX-YYY-ZZZ
Conference Number HiSST-2022-212
While initially met with skepticism, launch vehicles with reusable stages are now an established and
successful part of the global launch market. Thus, there is a need to analyze and assess the
possibility of such a system being designed and built in Europe. Accordingly, in 2016 the German
Aerospace Center (DLR) initiated a study on reusable first stages named ENTRAIN (European Next
Reusable Ariane). Within this study two return method categories, respectively vertical take-off,
vertical landing (VTVL) and vertical take-off, horizontal landing (VTHL) with winged stages, were
investigated. First, preliminary design tools were used to identify promising configurations and in the
second phase more specialized and extensive analyses were conducted for subsystems of special
interest. From this second phase, the results of the evaluation of two areas are presented: Structure
as well as system dynamics, guidance and control. The results of these analyses together with
previously published results from other subsystems increase the confidence in the designs proposed
and evaluated within the ENTRAIN study as well as in the general understanding of the technical
factors driving the design of reusable stages.