Mission Engineering for Space Rider Maiden Return Mission

Giovanni MEDICI, Federico TOSO, Martins SUDARS, Alejandro RIVERO MARTIN, Gabriele DE ZAIACOMO

DOI Number: N/A

Conference number: HiSST-2025-087

The ESA Space Rider programme is developing a European reusable space transportation system for routine access and return from Low Earth Orbit. The Space Rider system is composed of an expendable AVUM Orbital Module, and a reusable Re-entry Module designed to be flown multiple times. The latter must be a flexible system to carry a wide range of payloads, and robust enough to cope with a wide range of flight conditions, in compliance to the applicable safety constraints in case of failure. This is a critical challenge for Europe, beyond the state of the art in re-entry technology represented by the successful flight of the ESA Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle IXV. This work presents the Space Rider Mission Engineering activities carried out during the phase D of the program, focusing on the baseline mission updates for the maiden mission, landing at Santa Maria, Azores. This study also provides an in-depth description of three specific advancements that have been introduced in the latest loop of mission analysis. The first advancement provides feedback to verify that the trim-line is not only inside the bounds of the entry corridor but also ensures the largest possible margins from the constraints. The second is the reduction of the number of trajectory optimisation variables due to the use of an on-board guidance model in the optimal control problem, reducing the gap between simulations and flight.
The last novelty jointly executes the entry interface point localisation and de-orbit manoeuvre optimisation with the same modelling fidelity of the mission performance verification, expanding the range of solutions for the de-orbit manoeuvre in 2 dimensions. The engineering advancements that have been developed improve the mission design processes, by
providing additional insights on the capabilities of the system and guiding the choices that affect the outcome of the mission verification.

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Flying Qualities, Mission Engineering, Space Rider, Trajectory Optimisation

In Categories: 1.Events, 1.HiSST 2025, High-Speed Missions and Vehicles

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