A method to bring a reusable satellite launch vehicle from space into the atmosphere.

What is it about?

This paper presents a method to enable generation of a trajectory for a reusable satellite launch vehicle to re-enter the earth's atmosphere from space after having launched satellites into orbit. The vehicle considered is an un-powered fixed wing aircraft with satellites stored within its fuselage. The only means of control are the aerodynamic forces acting on its wings and fuselage. The re-entry phase of any vehicle into the earth's atmosphere is characterized by high structural load and heat generation on the vehicle's structure. The algorithm presented in this paper generate a path towards a desired location on earth in such a manner that the structural load and heat induced on its surface are minimized.

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Why is it important?

The paper considers full nonlinear physical behavior of the dynamics, the effects of the earth's rotation on its path, and ensures that the trajectory is robust to any uncertainties in the aircraft lift or drag coefficients. Furthermore, the algorithm generates a solution online, thus the need to perform offline computations is eliminated. This makes the vehicle robust to any deviations from the expected flight path.

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