Energy management and vehicle synthesis

The major drivers in the development of launch vehicles for the twenty-first century are reduction in cost of vehicles and operations, continuous reusability, mission abort capability with vehicle recovery, and readiness. One approach to the design of such vehicles is to emphasize energy management and propulsion as being the principal means of improvements given the available industrial capability and the required freedom in selecting configuration concept geometries. A methodology has been developed for the rational synthesis of vehicles based on the setting up and utilization of available data and projections, and a reference vehicle. The application of the methodology is illustrated for a single stage to orbit (SSTO) with various limits for the use of airbreathing propulsion.