Design and optimization of glide-back reusable launch vehicle architectures

Mathieu Balesdent (1) , Loic Brevault (1) , Bernard Paluch (2) , Romain Wuilbercq (1) , Naïr Subra (1) , Rémi Thépot (3) , Antoine Patureau de Mirand (4)

1 DTIS, ONERA, Université Paris Saclay (COmUE) [Palaiseau]
2 DMAS, ONERA [Lille]
3 DAAA, ONERA, Université Paris Saclay (COmUE) [Meudon]
4 CNES - Centre National d’Études Spatiales [Paris]

In the context of the design of partially reusable launch vehicles, different alternatives may be investigated to recover the first stage while minimizing the costs of reusability and maximizing the performance and reliability. In this paper, a winged configuration of reusable first stage, called glide-back, is studied. This architecture uses the main propulsion system of the first stage to perform a boost-back burn and return to the landing site by a gliding mode using additional lifting surfaces. A focus is made on the design of a reusability kit that can be added to a classical stage to provide it with reusability capabilities. The trade-off between the design of the reusability kit and its impact on the ascent phase, staging point and global performance of the vehicle is investigated through aerodynamics and trajectory analyses.

Mots clés: LANCEUR REUTILISABLE; MDO

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]; Physique [physics]; Mathématiques [math]; Chimie

Mathieu Balesdent, Loic Brevault, Bernard Paluch, Romain Wuilbercq, Naïr Subra, et al.. Design and optimization of glide-back reusable launch vehicle architectures. EUCASS 2019, Jul 2019, MADRID, Spain. ⟨10.13009/EUCASS2019-604⟩. ⟨hal-02449247⟩