Abstract
The purpose of this research is an analysis of the static and dynamic stability of the Modular Airplane System (MAS). The MAS is designed to perform suborbital space flights. The concept assumes that two tailless vehicles bonded together form a conventional aircraft where the wing of the second one is used as the horizontal tail of the whole system. The CFD calculations, and the stability and control derivatives were conducted by the PANUKL package, which uses a low order panel method for the aerodynamic analysis. The analysis of the static and dynamic stability was performed by the SDSA package. Only the selected part of the MAS mission was investigated. The results that will be presented have been divided into three parts: static stability, longitudinal dynamic stability and lateral dynamic stability. The MAS has a few possible applications. The first one is a suborbital space tourism flight. Moreover, it can be used as a lunching vehicle for micro satellites or as a testing platform for new space technology to improve their TRL level. Finally, in the far future, it could be used as a fast point-to-point travel system. The paper presents the results of the static and dynamic stability of a unique aircraft configuration which consists of two tailless vehicles. The research focuses on a situation where the vehicles are just before separation and their mass is similar. Moreover, the influence of the second vehicle’s position with respect to the first one is included.
Highlights
Space technology development has caused an increase in the society’s interest in space travel
Suborbital flights seem to be a very promising concept. The idea of this kind of flight assumes crossing the boundary of outer space, but the vehicle does not achieve an orbit
The border between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space is at 100 kilometers above sea level, so everyone who has crossed this border becomes an astronaut
Summary
Space technology development has caused an increase in the society’s interest in space travel. The price of a visit to the International Space Station is about 20 million USD (Furton Corporation 2002). If the cost of space travel decreased and flight preparations were shorter, the group of potential customers would be quite big (Furton Corporation 2002). Suborbital flights seem to be a very promising concept. The idea of this kind of flight assumes crossing the boundary of outer space, but the vehicle does not achieve an orbit. The border between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space is at 100 kilometers above sea level, so everyone who has crossed this border becomes an astronaut. A few companies are working on the first commercial vehicle for a suborbital space flight
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