Longitudinal aerodynamic modeling and verification for air-launch-to-orbit system during stage separation

Abstract

The stage separation is one of key issues for air-launch-to-orbit system. In this process, the elastic deformation of carrier causes periodic pulsation in interference aerodynamics and may lead to modal coupling and dynamics instability of spacecraft. The dynamic responses and stability of the two vehicles should be considered carefully. The CFD-based dynamic simulation method has high accuracy but requires large computation cost. In this study, a new reduced-order modeling method is developed, which is for unsteady aerodynamics of the air-launch-to-orbit system with considering the elastic deformations of carrier. Based on the physical mechanism of interference aerodynamics factors, the model input parameters are decoupled and the modeling difficulty is reduced. By coupling the unsteady aerodynamic model, structural dynamics equations and rigid body dynamic equations, the longitudinal dynamic responses of air-launch-to-orbit system during stage separation are simulated. Through comparison, those results have good agreement with traditional CFD-based method, and the simulation efficiency of new method is improved greatly. The new modeling method is applicable to the air-launch-to-orbit system and can provide guidance for similar engineering issues.