Multidisciplinary design and optimization of winged architectures for reusable launch vehicles

Abstract

Partially reusable launch vehicle design has raised a great interest in order to minimize the costs of space transportation by recovering and refurbishing the first stage. Several configurations such as toss-back architectures are now operational. These concepts require additional rocket propellant in order to carry the boost-back and landing maneuvers, that induce several losses in terms of payload mass performance for the ascent mission. In order to limit these losses, this paper focuses on the design of two types of architectures to carry out the return-to-launch-site mission. The first, named glide-back, uses the main propulsion system of the first stage to perform a boost-back burn and returns to the landing site by a gliding mode using additional lifting surfaces. The second, named, fly-back, performs the return-to-launch-site mission using several air-breathing engines located in the nose of the first stage combined with lifting surfaces. In this paper, the design of a reusability kit, allowing to provide the first stage with both expendable and reusable capabilities, is investigated. This kit is composed of the lifting surfaces, the nose including the air-breathing propulsive system (for fly-back configuration), landing gears and additional avionics. This paper addresses the design of such reusability kits and presents the mission specifications, the design process relying on Multidisciplinary Design Optimization techniques, the vehicle performance and the optimal trajectories. Different analyses (aero-propulsive, optimal control, operational considerations, etc.) are detailed and trade-offs between the studied configurations are assessed.