Key Terrestrial and Space Environment Sources

Dale L Johnson,William W Vaughan

doi:10.5028/jatm.v12.1089

Dale L Johnson, William W Vaughan

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5028/jatm.v12.1089

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Abstract

Natural (Terrestrial & Space) Environment (NE) phenomena play a significant role in the design and flight of aerospace vehicles and in the integrity of the associated aerospace systems and structures. Both the terrestrial environment (0-90 km altitude) and the space environment (Earth orbital altitudes) parameters and their engineering application philosophy are given with emphasis on launch vehicle-affected terrestrial environment elements. This paper will describe the key terrestrial and space environment sources: wind; atmospheric; and orbital models used in the design and development of launch/space vehicles.

Highlights

This paper no.2 is a continuation of (Johnson/Vaughan JATM 2019) which both present the role of the natural environment used in the design and development of launch vehicles
Winds Aloft Design Application - Vector Wind Profile (VWP) for Vehicle Ascent (>150m [>492 ft]) Examples are given for the monthly VWP model that is suitable for application in preliminary engineering design studies for Launch Vehicle (LV) requiring assessments for vehicle trajectory simulations and aerodynamic load dispersions attributable to monthly wind profile dispersions from zero to 27 km (15 nmi) altitude
They need to implement each of the 12 pairs of the vertical synthetic wind profiles individually within the engineering calculations, to represent extreme wind magnitudes and interlevel wind shear used for design

Summary

INTRODUCTION

This paper no. is a continuation of (Johnson/Vaughan JATM 2019) which both present the role of the natural environment used in the design and development of launch vehicles. Winds Aloft Design Application - Vector Wind Profile (VWP) for Vehicle Ascent (>150m [>492 ft]) Examples are given for the monthly VWP model that is suitable for application in preliminary engineering design studies for LVs requiring assessments for vehicle trajectory simulations and aerodynamic load dispersions attributable to monthly wind profile dispersions from zero to 27 km (15 nmi) altitude. The largest response to wind perturbations is expected to be near the reference altitude because of the large shears generated in that area They need to implement each of the 12 pairs of the vertical synthetic wind profiles (zero to 27 km [15 nmi]) individually within the engineering calculations, to represent extreme wind magnitudes and interlevel wind shear used for design. If the 5% risk, critical design peak wind speed value is determined to be 17.7 m/s (58 ft/s) for the windiest 1-h period at 18.3 m (60 ft), the peak wind speed value can be calculated at ≈150 m (500 ft) to be 26.2 m/s (86 ft/s)

Design application

Findings

CONCLUSION